42 ASPLEKIUM MARIXUM. 
ASPLE'NIUM MAEI'NUM. 
IN English this is known now as the Sea Spleenwort, 
Sea Maidenhair, and Dwarf Sea Fern, but Gerarde, and 
others of our early herbalists, called it the Female Dwarf 
Stone Fern. 
Its main root is black, scaly, and tufted, furnished 
with many intricately interwoven rootlets. From the 
tuft arise the fronds, which vary in height from three 
to nine inches. About one-third of the lower part of 
each stalk is naked, and brownish-purple, crooked at the 
bottom, and from where the leaflets commence, up to 
the summit of the stalk, there is a narrow, thick wing, 
or border, on each side, joining the base of the leaflets 
to each other. The leaflets are dark green above, but 
paler underneath, leathery, more or less alternate, very 
short-stalked, very irregular in form, but where most 
regular somewhat of an egg-shape, and almost always 
less than an inch in length, and mostly about half that 
length ; often lobed on the upper edge at the broadest 
end, and the margin more or less toothed or cut 
throughout. They are nearly all of equal length, 
so that the outline of the frond is strap-like but 
pointed. T'le mid-vein of each leaflet is prominent, and 
the side-veins are variously forked. Attaehed to the 
upper edge of these side veias is the fructification, which, 
following their direction, slants sideways but upwards. 
The fructification is on almost every side vein, and 
spreads, but is never conflueut, nor even crowded. The 
