ASPLENIUM GERMANICUM. 33 
ASPLE'NIUM GERMA'NICUM. 
THIS, among many other names, has also been called 
Asplenium alternifolium, because the leaflets are more 
distinctly alternate than in most other Ferns, but a? all 
the species are, for the most part, alternate-leaved, this 
is an objectionable name ; and so, indeed, is germanicum, 
for this species is native of other countries besides 
Germany. However, it is better to put up with an in- 
appropriate name, rather than to encumber the student 
with synonymes. 
Our drawing is of the life-size ; for this Fern varies 
but little in height between three and five inches. Its 
main root is black, furnished with many rootlets of 
the same colour, and crowned with a tuft from amid 
which arise the fronds. The stem of these is so deep 
a purple at the bottom as to appear black ; the lower 
half is unleafleted, and the upper half is green, and 
furnished with but a few widely separated leaflets, very 
distinctly alternating. The leaflets are pale green, 
narrow-wedge-shaped, tapering into slender stalks, and 
the top of each leaflet is deeply notched, and one notch 
in the lower leaflets is so deep as to form a lobe. There 
is no mid or main vein to the leaflets, but small parallel 
veins, some of which have the fructification along their 
inner edge. The fructification (sori) are covered by a 
narrow membrane, the opening edge of which is whole, 
or at most indented, but never jagged. The spores, 
or seed, are ripe in August, at which time the fructifica- 
B 
