186 Xll. BLECHNUM. 
ft. ramosum : apex of fronds constantly subdivided 
in a dichotomous way, and curled, i.e. multifid-crisped. 
BLECHNUM SPICANT, car. RAMOSUM, J. R. Kinahan in litt. 
and Phytol.iv., 892. 
The Hard Fern has a thick tufted scaly caudex, to 
which the fronds are terminal and adherent. The fronds 
perish in the winter, young ones springing up about May, 
and attaining maturity by the end of the summer. The 
barren ones are shorter than the fertile, narrow elongate- 
lanceolate tapering to both extremities, pectinate-pin- 
natifid, with close flat oblong obtuse segments somewhat 
curved in the direction of the apex of the frond, and 
having a prominent mid-vein with slender forked venules, 
the branches of which terminate just within the margin in 
a small, transparent, club-shaped head. These fronds 
usually lie in a nearly horizontal position, and are at- 
tached by a short, dark-coloured, slightly scaly stipes. The 
fertile fronds grow up from the centre of the tufts, and 
are usually quite erect ; they vary from one to two feet in 
height, and are narrow elongate-lanceolate, pinnate. In 
ordinary cases the barren and fertile fronds are quite dis- 
tinct, but sometimes both conditions occur on the same 
frond. I am indebted for specimens in illustration of this 
fact from Mr. G. F. Playne, collected at Nailsworth, in 
Gloucestershire, in one of which the base is barren, and 
the apex fertile, in another the apex is barren, and the 
basal parts fertile. The position of these fronds on the 
plants, was, I am informed, intermediate between the or- 
dinary decumbent barren and the erect fertile fronds. The 
stipes is from a third to half the length of the frond, dark 
purple, smooth, with a few small scattered scales near the 
base, and the rachis is of the same colour. The pinna; 
are narrow linear acute, curved towards the apex of the 
frond, convolute at the margins, and covered on the under 
side with the confluent lines of spore-cases. Their venation 
is rather peculiar : each pinna has a distinct mid-vein 
