286 
ASPLENIACE^. 
in Africa, and in the United States of North America, where it 
has been called melanocaulon and Trichomanoides ; but after a 
careful comparison I am unable to detect the slightest difference 
between the North- American and British plants. 
There are good figures of this fern in Gerarde,^ Bolton,i 
‘English Botany ,’J Hooker’s ‘Flora Londinensis,’§ and in many 
of the continental Floras. 
Concerning the name little difference of opinion has prevailed. 
Berkenhout,|l and one or two others, have called it Trichoma- 
noides, but nearly all authors have described it as Asplenium 
Trichomanes. 
Its medicinal properties were much celebrated by the older 
botanists. Baylf says it is useful in complaints of the chest and 
lungs ; and Lightfoot informs us that in Scotland the country 
people sometimes give a tea or syrup of it for coughs and other 
complaints of the thorax, but that it is rarely sold in the shops.^'^ 
The roots are black and wiry : they insinuate themselves into 
the fissures of rocks previously so small as to escape observa- 
tion. In old buildings this fern certainly promotes decay, by 
disintegrating the mortar, which, however enfeebled by time, 
still adds in some degree to their strength and durability. The 
fronds make their appearance in April and May, arrive at ma- 
turity in August and September, and remain perfectly green 
throughout the winter. The stem is naked for a third part of its 
length, smooth, shining, and, throughout its whole length, of a 
purplish black colour. The frond is narrow, linear, and simply 
pinnate ; the pinnae are dark green and very numerous, irregu- 
larly ovate, obtuse at the apex and more or less crenate at the 
margin ; they are usually distinct and distant, but sometimes 
crowded, and each more or less recumbent on the one preceding 
it : they are attached to the stem by their stalk only, and when 
the frond approaches decay, the pinnae fall off like the leaves of 
phaenogamous plants, leaving the stems naked, which, being 
very durable, last from year to year, and become a dense tuft of 
denuded bristles. The pinnules vary from the size of those re- 
* Ger. Em. 1146. f Bolt. Fil. tab. 13. ^ Eng. Bot. 576. 
§ Flor. Lond. 156. \\ Berk. Syn. ii. 305. 51 Ray, Syn. 119. 
Lightfoot, Flor. Scot. ii. 663. 
