4 splenium.] 
FERNS. 
41 
Our present species most resembles tlic last, the shape of the frond being 
nearly the same. The Fontanum, however, is much more delicate, and 
smaller in all its parts, of a very dark green color, its pinnules not half the 
size and of a very different shape to those of the Lanceolatum, besides which 
its winged rachis is of itself a sufficient diagnostic. It is very much more diffi- 
cult to distinguish it from Asplenium Halleri, a species that is very rare on the 
Continent, and for which our Fontanum is very generally sold. 
Hab. — Supposed to be now extinct in England ; it was once found on Amer- 
sham Church, in Buckinghamshire, and at Wybourn, in Westmoreland. I 
have been informed that living plants were found at a waterfall in either 
Northumberland or Westmoreland, 10 or 12 years ago, and also that it 
once grew on Alnwick Castle ; but if so, it is no longer found there. 
Geo. — Saxony, Switzerland, South Europe, and Siberia. 
8.— ASPLENIUM ADIANTUM NIGRUM. 
BLACK MAIDEN-HAIR. SHINING SPLEENWORT. 
(Plate 3, fig. 8.) 
Cha. — Frond tripinnate, subdeltoid. Pinnae alternate. Pinnules 
inciso-serrate, blunt. Rachis winged, black. 
Syn. — Asplenium Adiantum nigrum, Linn., Willd., Smith, Hook., Mack., 
Bolt., Roth, Hnds., With., Gal p., Bernh., Light f . — Asplenium lucidum, 
Gray, Salisb. 
Fig.— E. B. 1950.— Flo. Dan. 250 .—Bolt. 17.— Ger. 1137. 
Des. — Frond tripinnate, ovate or deltoid, 4 to 8 inches high, dark 
green, rigid and erect. Rachis black, smooth, slightly winged, 
clothed with pinnae only on the upper half. Pinnae alternate, those 
only on the lower part twice pinnate, the lowermost the largest. 
Pinnules deeply cleft, tapering at their base, sharply serrated at and 
near the top. Sori linear at first, round at last, covering the whole 
under surface of the frond. 
a. Fronds rigid, tripinnate only at the lower part. ( The common plant). 
/3 Fronds delicate, tripinnate throughout. ( Not of Smith.)* 
Sir J. E. Smith, in conformity with the old authors, makes another variety, 
differing only from the common plant in having long fronds and distant pinna', 
but I leave any one to say if it be anything more than a drawn up plant of the 
common species, found as it was, solitary, in a dark cave. 
FIab. — «. : Common through the United Kingdom, on walls, rocks, &c. I 
have habitats from the Orkney Islands, and from those in the English Channel, 
from the Eastern as well as from the Western counties, from Wales, Scotland, 
and Ireland. Dr. Murray writes me, “ Not common in the north of Scotland.” 
— A : Limestone rocks at Mucruss, Killarney, Mr. Mackay, Miss Hutchins, 
and Dr. Taylor. Mount Cahir-Cource, six miles from Tralee, Mr. W. Andrews. 
Geo. — Italy, France, Germany, Madeira, and high mountains of Carolina. 
* Mr. J. Beevis informs me that the late Dr. Emerson (who resided near Tunbridge), found 
some years ago what he considered a multifid variety of this plant, under a rock in Staffordshire. 
Ho had 8 or 9 fronds, one of which I have a part of, and havo represented a lower pinnule 
of one of the lower pinnae in the last plate. The plant is so curious and beautiful as to be 
worth the search. It is very different from the Irish variety. 
D 
