LADY FERN. 
239 
constituted his genus Athyrium for its reception, yet our three 
most eminent British botanists have disregarded his labours. 
Smith places it in Aspidium ; * Hooker in Asplenium ; f and 
Brown instituted his genus Allantodia for the reception of spe- 
cies scarcely distinguishable from ours. The genus may readily 
be distinguished by the elongate and somewhat sausage-shaped 
clusters of capsules, the attachment of which, together with that 
of the involucre which covers them, describes a concave rather 
than a direct line as in Asplenium^ and the anterior or free mar- 
gin of the involucre is slightly incurved. From Lastrcea this 
genus differs in having the clusters of capsules linear instead of 
circular, attached to the side instead of the back of the vein, and 
the involucre which covers them attached longitudinally instead 
of transversely on the vein. Its discrepancy from the genus 
Aspidium^ as now restricted to a group of ferns possessed of a 
distinguishing character common to them all, need scarcely 
be pointed out, since we have no European representative of 
the genus. 
The root is black, fibrous, and v/iry. The rhizoma is very 
large and vertically elongate, sometimes rising several inches 
above the surface of the ground ; in one instance I have seen it 
more than a foot in height, thus evincing a considerable proxi- 
mity to the tree ferns of tropical countries. Mr. Ball of Dublin 
showed me a plant of Filix-femina in a Wardian case, in which 
this peculiarity was very remarkable. 
The fronds make their appearance in May ; at first their ver- 
nation is circinate, but as they advance the apex becomes free, 
and hangs down as in Filix-mas, assuming the appearance of a 
shepherd’s crook : the form of the frond is lanceolate and regu- 
larly pinnate, the pinnules are simply toothed, pinnatifid or re- 
gularly pinnate. The naked portion of the stem varies from 
a quarter to a third of the entire length of the frond : it has 
numerous elongate blackish scales, which are particularly abun- 
dant at the base, and more scattered, smaller and scarcely ob- 
servable on the superior part : the stem is very much swollen at 
the base. 
* Eng. Flor. iv. 282. 
f Brit. Flor. 443. 
