A SPLENIC M. 
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Devon, Dorset, and Sussex to the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands. It is abundant 
along the coast of the whole of Ireland. Although so essentially a seaside plant, there are 
one or two instances on record of its occurring some distance inland ; as in a stone quarry 
near Warrington (Lancashire or Cheshire), and a red sandstone rock at Newton, Lancashire. 
Mr. Newman found very small examples, the fronds of which were not more than two inches 
long, on a steep rock near the Lakes of Killarney. When the plant grows at any distance 
from the sea it seems to become unnaturally dwarfed, assuming the appearance shown in 
the accompanying figure ( b ). The specimen marked (a), has the pinna narrower and more 
deeply divided than usual. The other extreme in size is also recorded by the author 
just quoted, who mentions specimens in Guernsey, having fronds two feet or even thirty 
inches long* It is mainly confined to Southern and Western Europe, although specimens 
exist from Nova Scotia, Jamaica, the Bermudas, and South Brazil. It is abundant 
in the Canaries and Madeira, at about the level of the sea, and occurs in some other of the 
IRREGULAR FORMS OF ASFI.ENIUM MARINUM. 
African islands ; it also gets into North Africa, being reported from Algeria and Tangiers, 
while in Morocco it grows on Cape Spartel, in inaccessible places. In Southern Europe the 
Sea Spleenwort is found in various parts of the coast of France, in many districts of Spain, 
including Gibraltar, and also in Portugal, in Corsica, and Sicily. 
As we have said, this is a somewhat variable species, and numerous forms of it have been 
described. Mr. Moore enumerates eleven, six of which he considers to be worthy of varietal 
names and technical descriptions. The variety trapeziforme is thought to be the plant which 
Hudson, in the “ Flora Anglica” (1762), described, under the name of Adianlum trapeziforme, as a 
distinct species from Scotland. It is a dwarf plant of robust habit, with short rounded dark- 
green leathery segments, the lower of which are trapeziform and deflexed ; this has been found 
in several parts of England. The variety acutum has narrow, elongated pinnae, which are 
drawn out to an acute point ; the fronds are long, and distantly and loosely pinnate ; this has 
been found in the south of England and the Channel Islands. The variety assimile, an 
Irish and Channel Island form, “ may be considered as a deeply lobed condition of the variety 
acutum.” The variety incisum is a small and pretty form, the short pinnae of which are 
* Mr. Moore speaks of the variety parallelum as attaining even greater length. 
