Asplenium.] 
FERNS. 
53 
very deeply cleft at the sides and toothed at the apex as to become 
nearly pinnate. Seldom more than two sori upon each pinnule, 
which soon extend over the whole surface of it. 
Our present species most resembles Asplenium lanceolatum, the shape of the 
leaf being nearly the same. The fontanum, however, is much more delicate, 
and smaller in all its parts, of a very dark green colour, its pinnules not half the 
size, and of a very different shape to those of the lanceolatum, besides which 
its winged leaf-stalk is of itself a sufficient diagnostic. It is very much more 
difficult to distinguish it from Asplenium Halleri, a species that is very rare on 
the Continent, and for which our fontanum is very generally sold. [A. Halleri is 
not really distinct. — -Ed.] 
FIab.- — This Fern was once found on Amersham 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, fourteen or sixteen 
years ago, and also that it once grew on Alnwick Castle ; but if so, it is no longer 
found there. [It has recently been reported from other localities ; Matlock, 
Derbys., Mr. Shepherd ; Stonehaven, Kincardine, Mr. Hutcheson ; and specimens 
exist in the Herb, of the Botan. Soc. of London, marked from Wharnecliffe Woods, 
Yorks., Mr. Redhead (1838) ; and Cavehill, Belfast, Mr. Newnham.'] 
Geo. — Saxony, Switzerland, South Europe, and Siberia. 
8.— ASPLENIUM LANCEOLATUM. 
LANCEOLATE SPLEENWORT. 
(Plate Y, fig. 2.) 
Cha. — Leaf lanceolate, bipinnate. Pinnules obovate, sharply 
toothed at the apex. Leaf-stalk not winged. 
Syn. — Asplenium lanceolatum, Huds., Swz., Hoffm., Willd., Smith, Hook., 
Forst., With., Galp., Gray. — Phyllitis lancifolia, Moench. 
Fig. — E. B. 240. — Ger. Herb. 1135. — Newm.p. 219 (1854). 
Des. — Leaf lanceolate, bipinnate, from 3 to 6 inches high, 
upright in habit, and of a light green colour. Leaf-stalk green, 
minutely hairy, not winged, void of pinnee below. Pinnae opposite, 
from twelve to twenty pairs, the lower pair short, distant from the 
next, and often slightly drooping. Pinnules ovate, sharply serrated 
and pointed, the smaller confluent, the larger petioled and tapering 
at the base, particularly that on the upper side next the rachis. Sori 
light brown, one or two near the middle of each pinnule, at first linear, 
afterwards round, but very rarely or never covering the whole under 
surface. 
The leaves of young plants are sometimes linear and simply pinnate. 
This Fern has been repeatedly confounded with Asplenium Adiantum nigrum, 
though there is a very great dissimilarity between them ; our present species is of 
a ditferent shape, colour, size, and habit, its divisions less numerous, the naked 
part of its stem shorter, and its sori less extended ; in fact, they vary in almost 
every particular. 
