Scolopendruim.] 
FERNS. 
43 
ceolate, long-pointed, and tapering at the base, 12 to 20 inches high, 
dark green, very delicate in habit, often recurved. Pinnae alternate, 
from 20 to 40 pairs, oblong, tapering gradually to a point, the lower 
ones sometimes drooping. Pinnules very numerous, oblong, rather 
blunt, pinnatifid, or inciso-serrate, the serratures minutely toothed, 
but not aristate, the lower pair close to and parallel with the rachis. 
Sori solitary, near the base of the lobes, at first linear-reniform, at 
length round, but not confluent. Indusium jagged, white, oblong 
or reniform. 
/3 Racliis red and somewhat scaly. (This is the character the plant hears 
in Switzerland.) 
y ( Aspid. Irriguum, Sm.) Frond narrow, pinnae distant and tender. 
I Frond broad and small, pinnae and pinnules short and few, nearly white. 
All the varieties of this Fern are so very tender (particularly the var. y), 
that they shrivel up and become withered almost immediately upon being 
gathered. Under the name of Aspidium Irriguum, I have received fronds 
(without fruit) of very different habit, marked y and £, neither of them by any 
means a distinct species, perhaps not even a constant variety, as the former 
appears to me rather a plant drawn up either by a confined situation or excess 
of moisture, while the other is perhaps a young plant only, and its very light 
color an adventitious circumstance. The beauty of this common plant occa- 
sioned its name of Lady Fern, contrasting as it does with the robust habit of 
Filix Mas or Male Fern. 
Six. — Its natural habitation is swampy woods and damp hedge-rows, or, as 
Sir Walter Scott incidentally remarks in his novel of Waverley, — 
“ Where the copse-wood is the greenest, 
Where the fountain glistens slieenest, 
Where the morning dew lies longest, 
There the Lady Fem grows strongest.” 
Hab. — P retty freely distributed over the Southern and Midland Counties of 
England and Ireland, though it is by no means abundant in North Wales or 
North Scotland, except in particular neighbourhoods. — /3 : Frequent in moist 
woods in Kent, Mr. W. Pamplin. — y : Rubens Law, Jedburg ; Abor, Caem. ; 
and near the English Bridge, Shrewsbury, Mr. Leighton. Marsh at Muc.russ, 
Killarney, Mr. Mac/cay. In some boggy woods belonging to Eridge Park, 
Tunbridge Wells (1835), Mr. W. Pamplin. — <5 : Prestwich Carr, near Man- 
chester, Mr. Merrick , who gave me a specimen (5 inches high). 
Geo. — Throughout Europe, and from Canada to Virginia, in North America. 
SCOLOPENDRIUM, Swz. HART’S-TONGUE. 
(The sori are shaped like the feet of a Scolopendra.) 
PLATE OF GENERA, FIG. VII. 
The sorus of this small genus appears to have two indusiums, at first fold- 
ed over each other, and afterwards thrown back in contrary directions ; but in 
fact the sorus is no less double, two of them growing together so closely as to form 
in appearance but one mass, this is transverse, and seated between those lateral 
veins to which the two covers are attached. 
D 2 
