Pol ystichum. 
141 
similar habit. The sessile pinnae are numerous and crowded, the upper ones frequently 
overlapping ; they are shortly stalked, or sessile, about an inch long in their widest part ; 
the lower ones are almost deltoid or wedge-shaped, and auricled at the base, as shown in the 
figure. The margins of the pinnae are serrated, the serratures being surmounted by bristly or 
spiny points. The sori are usually confined to the upper part of the frond ; they are round, and 
placed in two or more rows, at first distinct, but often becoming confluent when fully 
developed. “ The rigidity of texture, the strongly spinous margin, and the tendency to 
imbrication in the pinnae,” according to Mr. Moore, “ offer the readiest marks of distinction 
between this plant and some of the forms of P. aculecitum 
This is a singularly conservative species ; there seems to be little or none of that 
adaptability to other forms which characterises several of our European ferns. It seems 
very strange that while the varieties of one fern may almost be counted by hundreds, another 
species should have none to record ; but the latter is certainly the case with P. Lonchitis, if 
we except such occasional and unimportant variations as a forked apex to the fronds. Mr. 
Moore, in the place already referred to, says that the plants “ sometimes produce small 
bulbils in the axils of the lowermost pinnae, from which young plants spring up. This 
quality of producing bulbils,” he continues, “seems to be the result in great measure of 
certain little understood peculiarities of cultivation or situation ; for while with some 
cultivators many of the British species prove bulb-bearing, the peculiarity seldom occurs with 
others.” The Holly Fern is not very easy to grow ; it will do well in a cool moist frame, 
potted firmly in well-drained loamy soil, and freely supplied with moisture ; but it does not 
succeed in the neighbourhood of towns, owing probably to the impurity of the atmosphere 
as contrasted with the native haunts of the plant. 
POLYSTICHUM ACULEATUM, Roth. 
We have here a handsome and a common fern ; one, however, which is liable to be 
confused with its ally, P. angulare , on the one hand, while on the other it approximates, in 
one of its forms, rather closely to the Holly Fern just described. It is a stout-growing 
plant, with fronds from a foot to three feet in height, resembling a good deal in habit the 
common Male Fern ( Lastrea Filix-mas), but at once striking the eye as different on account 
of the rigid habit and prickly or almost spinous aspect of the fronds. It has a thick upright or 
somewhat procumbent rhizome, which ultimately becomes woody, and is made up of the 
bases of the old fronds surrounding the axis. The roots are strong and tough, penetrating 
deep into the earth, and retaining a close hold. The stipes is from two to four inches 
long, thickly clothed with dense brown chaffy scales, as is also the upper part of the rhizomes, 
and the rachis throughout the greater part of its length. The fronds are smooth, lanceolate, 
and twice pinnate, of a tough, leathery texture, deep-green above, and paler beneath, of 
erect rigid habit, or at times slightly drooping, from one to three feet long, and about six 
or seven inches across in their broadest part. The pinnae are given off from the rachis 
at nearly right angles ; they are lanceolate, and formed of numerous nearly opposite or 
alternate lanceolate pinnae; each of these terminates in a sharp, spiny point, and their margins 
are also serrated with sharp bristle-like teeth, to which the fern mainly owes its distinctive 
appearance. The lowermost pinnule is often longer than the rest and more distinctly 
* “Nature-printed British Ferns,” i. 119. 
