COMMON SPLEENWORT. 
287 
presented at page 285, to that of the detached ones in the same 
figure, intended to illustrate the fructification. The lateral veins 
are forked soon after leaving the midvein (see fig. a), the anterior 
branch bearing a linear cluster of capsules almost immediately 
after the division ; this cluster is at first covered by a long, li- 
near, white, membranous involucre, (see fig. b) : as the capsules 
swell this becomes obliterated, and the clusters, which are dark 
brown, become nearly confluent in two series (see fig. c), which 
however very rarely unite over the midrib : the clusters are ten 
or twelve in number. 
This fern is, generally speaking, constant in its form, and ra- 
ther remarkable for its uniformity of appearance. I have, how- 
ever, received a marked variety from Mr. Gibson 
of Hebden-bridge. The pinnae, instead of being 
nearly entire, as is usually the case, are deeply 
pinnatifid, as represented in the accompanying 
figure, and the pinnules or lobes are irregularly 
dentate. The specimens sent by Mr. Gibson 
are perfectly without fructification, but I do not 
know whether this is to be considered a charac- 
ter of the variety, or incidental only to the fronds 
I have received. The right-hand figure is a 
fac-simile representation of one frond as regards 
form and size; the left-hand figure represents a 
portion of a frond, in which the divisions are 
still more irregular. 
This beautiful variety appears to have been 
known to our earliest botanists, two previous 
figures existing in their works ; neither of them, 
however, represents the fronds quite so deeply 
divided as in the present instance. One figure is in Plukenet’s 
‘ Phytographia,’^ the plant being described in that author’s ‘Al- 
magestum Botanicum’f as Adiantum maritimum, segmentis ro~ 
tundiorihm : ’ it is stated, on the authority of Sherard, to have 
been found in Jersey. The second figure is in plate 315 of 
* Pluk. Phyt. tab. 73, fig. 6. 
t Pluk. Aim. Bot. 9. 
