MALE fern; 
201 
The form of the frond is lanceolate and pinnate : the lower 
pinnae are considerably shorter than those of the middle of the 
frond, but never approach the diminutive size of those of h. 
Oreopteris : all the pinnae are nearly linear, but acute at the 
apex ; they are regularly pinnate : the pinnules are obtuse, some- 
what pinnate at the extremities, and serrated at their margins. 
The lateral veins are forked half-way between 
the midvein and margin : after the fork the an- 
terior branch bears a nearly circular cluster of 
capsules, which are covered by a smooth, lead- 
coloured, reniform involucre, which is attached 
to the back of the vein at the point where the 
stalks of the capsules are inserted : the invo- 
lucre is more perfect, conspicuous and lasting, 
than in any other British fern : the lateral veins 
do not quite reach the margin of the pinnules, 
and the anterior branch of each is not quite so long as the 
posterior. 
I am indebted to Miss Browne, of Tallantire Hall, near Cock- 
ermouth, for two remarkable forms of this plant which appear to 
be constant in that neighbourhood : these seem to vary in oppo- 
site ways ; the first has the pinnules larger, broader and more 
crowded, than is usually the case ; the second has them longer, 
narrower and more distant, as represented in the pinna, figure 
page 197 : the first superior pinnule is generally much longer 
than the first inferior, a character also at variance with the usual 
structure of Filix-mas. This plant in habit and general ap- 
pearance much more nearly resembles Athyrium Filix-femina 
than the species which I am now describing, but the scales of 
the stem, the texture of the frond, and the characters of the in- 
volucre (although I have only seen it after the bursting of the 
capsules), are decidedly those of Filix-mas, or a closely allied 
species. A third strange example of variation occurs in a spe- 
cimen preserved in the herbarium of the late Mr. Winch, now 
in possession of the Linnean Society of London. This variety 
is precisely analogous to the lonchitiform specimens of Polysti- 
chum aculeatum, the pinnule being quite undivided : it does 
not appear to be a young or seedling plant, being as fully fruited, 
