PRICKLY FERN. 
171 
maturity in September : the fronds are tough, leathery, and 
perfectly persistent, retaining their green uninjured by frosts 
throughout the year, and showing no disposition to decay until 
the fronds of the succeeding year are fully developed ; indeed 
they are of so rigid and durable a character, that after changing 
their green hue for one of brown, they remain almost unaltered 
in form, and thus Nature often preserves the foliage of three or 
four successive years, attached to the same rhizoma, displaying 
to the enquiring gaze of the botanist a variation in character 
which will often strike him with astonishment. The form of the 
frond may be termed lanceolate, but it becomes more or less 
linear and more or less attenuated towards the base. The stem 
is usually very short, and is densely clothed with reddish scales ; 
these are very large, and crowded at its junction with the rhi- 
zoma, but upwards they diminish in size, and are much smaller 
where the stem becomes mingled with the frond. The rhizoma 
has always a disposition to fix itself on a perpendicular surface, 
whence the fronds issue in a nearly horizontal direction, their 
rigid habit almost precluding the possibility of their assuming 
that graceful bend which is more or less observable in every 
other fern similarly situated. The frond is lanceolate and pin- 
nate : the pinnae are variously divided : when entire, as is usually 
the case when the plant is young (figs, a a a), the fronds resem- 
ble those of the preceding species, P. Lonchitis, from which 
circumstance the name of Lonchitidoides has been applied to 
this form. When the first upper pinnule is separated from the 
body of the pinna, which remains nearly entire (figs, h h), the plant 
becomes the Aspidium munitum of the continent ; at least such 
is the opinion I gather from the descriptions of Sadler and 
others : when the pinna is more divided (figs, c c c),l suppose it 
to be the Polypodium lohatum of Hudson : and lastly, when the 
pinnule becomes quite pinnate at the base, and even beyond the 
middle (fig. d)^ it is the P. aculeatum of Linneus. I believe 
that no one who has watched the plant with careful attention has 
ever supposed these forms to be more than varieties of a single 
species. The first upper pinnule on each pinna is much larger 
than either of the others, indeed it is usually twice as large as 
the first lower pinnule ; it points directly upwards towards the 
