I IO 
E uropean Ferns. 
it carefully for many years, he was enabled to find fronds intermediate between it and 
A. A diantum-nigrum growing from the same rhizome as the typical A. Serpentini. Mr. Moore 
describes numerous other varieties, amounting in all to thirteen, but we do not purpose to dwell 
upon these. 
The Black Maidenhair Spleenwort is not difficult to cultivate, the most easily grown form 
being the beautiful acutinn. It will do well on a shady rockwork, especially if planted in 
sandy soil that is kept moderately moist, or among stones in a north aspect. It will 
grow well in a greenhouse ; here the dark shining fronds carefully develope themselves, and the 
plant becomes very ornamental. It is only specimens from hedge-banks, however, that can 
be removed with any likelihood of success ; when growing on a wall the roots are so firmly 
fixed that it is hardly possible to get out an entire specimen. 
ASPLENIUM SEELOSII, Leybold. 
This is a very curious little plant, and, according to Sir W. J. Hooker, is “ assuredly the 
rarest and most circumscribed in locality of any known European fern.” It has a small 
horizontal caudex, from which 
spring tufts of numerous fronds, 
the stipites of which are scarcely 
three inches long, while the leafy 
portion of the frond is not more 
than half an inch or an inch in 
length. This leafy portion of the 
frond is palmate or palmatisect, 
the segments being from three 
to five in number ; they are 
elongate or wedge-shaped, and 
unequally cut or toothed ; the 
few forked, nearly erect veins are 
sunk in the frond. The sori are 
few (four to eight) in number, 
and nearly parallel with the 
central vein, occupying the whole 
of the underside of the pinnae, and arc covered with a thin toothed indusium. 
ASPLENIUM SEELOSII. 
This curious little fern is confined to the dolomite region of Carinthia and the South 
Tyrol, at an elevation of from six hundred and twenty to six thousand feet, growing in small 
caves and on the vertical sides of barren dolomite rocks in the neighbourhood of water, in 
company with the Wall Rue (A. Ruta-muraria). It is found in several localities, but these 
lie close together ; and the species has not been found away from the dolomitic region. Our 
woodcut represents a specimen of the natural size. 
THE WALL RUE: ASPLENIUM RUTA-MURARIA, L. 
“ It hath very fine pale greene stalkes almost as fine as haires, set confusedly with divers 
pale greene leaves on very short footc-stalkcs, somewhat ncare unto the colour of Garden 
Rue, and not differing much in forme, but somewhat more like unto the true Adianthum , 
