WEISS’ SPLEENWORT. 
267 
I need not repeat my doubts as to Asplenium germanicum 
being a distinct species ; it is sufficient that so many excellent 
botanists have thought otherwise. I have much pleasure in 
quoting the following observations of the Rev. T. Bell on this 
subject. 
I am aware some botanists have remarked, that attenuated 
forms of Asplenium Ruta-muraria approach indefinitely near 
A. alternifolium. I believe the two species have occasionally 
been confounded, but I always regarded this as a mistake into 
which no one could fall who had perfect specimens before him, 
and who was not prepared to substitute the general aspect and 
habit of the plants for their specific characters. As Mr. New- 
man, in his recent publication on Ferns, has fallen into this 
mistake, and conjoined the species, I think it not out of place 
to communicate to the Botanical Society the following brief 
observations : — 
The first character is taken from the form of the frond, which 
is correctly stated by Sir William Hooker to be bipinnate in 
A. Ruta-muraria^ and, in alternifolium, pinnate, the lower pin- 
na ternate ; the pinnae in both being alternate. Now so far from 
its being the tendency of attenuated or contracted forms of A. 
Ruta-muraria to approach the pinnate form of alternifolium — 
the truth of the matter is, that the more attenuated the former 
is, the more distinctly bipinnate does it become, or in other 
w^ords, the nearer A. Ruta-muraria approaches alternifolium 
in its general aspect and habit, the further and more visibly does 
it diverge in this character. 
The second character is taken from the indusium, with re- 
gard to which it is hardly necessary to remark, that while that 
of alternifolium has a smooth even edge, the edge in all varie- 
ties of Ruta-muraria is invariably jagged or uneven, and this is 
quite visible to the naked eye.”* 
Without at all attempting to undervalue these observations, 
I would just observe that the peculiar form of frond had been 
previously well described in the Floras of France and Germany, 
and the character of the involucre pointed out by several authors. 
* Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 119, 
