Ceteraci/. 
r 29 
are quite devoid of an indusium — and call it Gymnogramme Ceterach ; but the affinity of the 
plant is undoubtedly with Asplenium rather than with Gymnogramme. 
The Scale Fern is a plant which varies very much in size. We sometimes find it in 
old walls, where it escapes any except the minutest scrutiny, not only because the fronds 
are only an inch or even less in length, but because they lurk in the cracks between the 
stones or bricks of which the wall is composed, and so hide themselves from the passer-by. 
Within the last two or three years we have seen specimens brought from a place in the 
suburbs of London on the Middlesex side of the river — we purposely abstain from indicating 
the locality more particularly — which answered to the above description, where it had previously 
escaped the notice of the investigators of the flora of that county; and some years since we 
were enabled to add the same fern to the list of Buckinghamshire plants, having been fortunate 
enough to detect diminutive examples upon a wall near West Wycombe in that county. The 
accompanying cut of a specimen from the Middlesex locality will show how easily the plant 
might be overlooked. The distribution of the Scale Fern in Britain 
is rather wide ; it is found in all or nearly all the southern, northern, 
and western counties, but is comparatively unfrequent in the eastern 
and midland counties. Its home would seem to be in the west ; it 
is there that it attains the greatest luxuriance and is found in the 
richest profusion ; in Somersetshire and Devonshire it is especially 
abundant, growing both upon rocks and upon walls. In Scotland 
it is much less frequent; the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, 
Ayr, Renfrew, Perth, and Argyle, with (more or less doubtfully) Lanark 
and Berwick, are recorded as producing it. In Ireland it is frequent, 
though local, on calcareous rocks and walls ; in the west and south, especially the former, 
it is very abundant, forming a striking feature in the walls so richly covered with vegetation 
which seem characteristic of many parts of Ireland — as in the county Waterford and in Galway. 
The flora of one of these walls would, if catalogued, be found to be rather extensive, and the 
more important of the plants composing it contrast admirably with each other — such as 
the Wall Rue and English Maidenhair {Asplenium Trichomanes) with the fern we are now 
considering and the thick round glossy leaves of the Wall Pennywort {Cotyledon Umbilicus), 
while spreading over all is the elegant tracery of the Herb Robert, with its bright pink 
flowers, fresh green leaves, and red stems. 
On the continent of Europe the Scale Fern is a plant of wide distribution. It is absent 
from Scandinavia, Northern Russia, Bohemia, and Austria, but is found in many parts of 
Germany, in Switzerland, the Tyrol, Hungary, Dalmatia, Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, and 
Spain. It also extends eastward to the Caucasus (it is absent from Siberia), Persia, and 
Palestine, and to North-Western India, being found in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet at an 
elevation of from six to eight thousand feet. On the African continent it seems to be 
confined to the extreme north (Algeria) and the extreme south (Cape of Good Hope) ; it 
is also found in Madeira, the Canaries, and the Cape Verd Islands. It seems to be absent 
from the New World, although it has been recorded from Brazil. 
The Scale Fern is remarkably free from variation : the principal variety is crenatum , which is 
a larger plant than the common form, and has the margins of the lobes of the fronds distinctly 
crenate, or broadly toothed. Mr. Moore also mentions a variety ramosum, which has the fronds 
branched at the apex. The crenate variety is not very uncommon, especially in Ireland, from 
which country is likewise recorded a form in which the pinnules are notched and also overlapping. 
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