European Ferns. 
156 
sea, among craggy limestone rocks. It has been recorded from Cornwall and Somersetshire, 
but either some error is to be suspected, or the fern was planted where found ; the latter was 
doubtless the case in its sole Irish 
locality — a wall at Townley Hall, co. 
Louth. On the Continent, too, its 
distribution is rather circumscribed. 
It has been recorded as occurring 
sparingly in Norway, and also from 
Spain, Greece, Sicily, South Germany, 
Switzerland, Dalmatia, and Hungary ; 
while out of Europe it occurs in Asia 
Minor, Siberia, and Asiatic Russia. 
This fern produces from a thick 
scaly, tufted caudex numerous firm 
upright fronds, from one to two feet 
high, having a densely scaly stipes 
about a third of the frond in length. 
The fronds are of a peculiar dull- 
green hue, with more or less crowded 
pinnae, those at the base being some- 
times more distant than the rest, and 
as long or even longer than the rest ; 
ihe outline of the fronds is cither 
lanceolate or elongated triangular, the 
latter form being especially noticeable 
in the young plant. Both fronds and 
rachis are covered with small short- 
stalked roundish glands, to which is 
due the slight but pleasant odour 
given off by the plant. The lobes of 
the pinnae are toothed, the teeth being 
broad and scarcely spiny ; this cha- 
racter is considered of importance by 
Mr. Newman, as being one by which 
this species may be readily distin- 
guished from its congeners. Milde 
distinguishes three forms of L. rigida, 
which he characterises by the shape 
of their fronds : the first, piunatisecta , 
has short, simply pinnate fronds, and 
is an uncommon plant, having been 
only collected by Boissier in the Sierra 
frond ok lastrea lutuDA. Nevada, and published by him as 
Aspidium nevadense : the second, bi- 
pumatisecta , is that to which many, perhaps most, of the European plants belong, and is also 
found in California; it has bipinnatisect fronds, and somewhat resembles L. spinulosa in habit: 
