Aspidium. ~\ 
FERNS. 
33 
2. — ASPIDIUM LOBATUM. 
CLOSE-LEAVED, PRICKLY SHIELD-FERN. 
(Plate II, fig. 5.) 
Ciia. — Frond bipinnate. Lobes decurrent, spinulose, elliptical, 
that next the rachis very large. 
Syn. — Aspidium lobatum, Swz., Gray, Willd., Sc/ik., Smith, Hook, in Br. 
FI., not in Flo. Scot., Forst., Galp., Mack. — Polypodium lobatum, 
/fuels. — Polypodium aculeatum, Bolt., With. 
Fig. — E.B. 1563. — Bolt., 26, f. 1 ( a full-groivn),f. 2 ( a young plant). 
Des. — Root tufted. Fronds growing from a circle, rigid, glaucous 
green, from 15 inches to 2 feet high, evergreen, perfectly ovate. 
Lower pinnae crowded, so as to overlap each other ; sometimes, 
however, the frond is elongated at the lower part, when the pinnae 
are proportionably distant. Rachis stout, scaly, and with pinnae 
to the very base. Pinnae short, alternate, lanceolate, pointed, and 
curved upward, therefore somewhat lunate. Smaller pinnules run- 
ning much into each other, the larger slightly auricled, decurrent, 
and that next the rachis so much larger than the rest as to project 
over its next neighbour, and also partly to conceal the base of the 
pinna next above it ; the inner edge of all the larger lobes running 
parallel to the rachis, and at a little distance from it, so that if held 
up, a line of light will appear on each side of the rachis, except near 
the base, where the first lobes are set very close to the main stem, 
whence perhaps its name of close-leaved. Sori large, in single rows, 
confined to the top of the frond. Cover orbicular, fixed by the 
centre, persistent, but easily knocked off. 
1 3 ( lonchitidoicles ). Pinnules combined, forming nearly a pinnate frond. 
Filix lonchitidi affinis, Ray. A. aculeatum (3, Smith in E. FI. A. lobatum, 
Hook, in Br. FI. Fig. — Pluk. Phyt, t. 180, f. 3 {good). 
This species is distinguished from the following, for which alone it can be taken, 
by the decurrent lobes ; and as Sir J. E. Smith very rightly observes, “ by the 
much shorter, more crowded, and less scaly pinnae.” Added to which, the lobes 
are more entire, being but slightly auricled, very convex, thick, and of a glaucous 
colour, furnished with a less number of and smaller bristly serratures, sometimes 
wanting them entirely at the sides. The sori also are more confined to the top of 
the frond, and larger than in A. aculeatum. The variety lonchilidoides is not 
very scaly, and in form and size exactly intermediate between this species and 
A. lonchitis. 
Sit. — On shady banks and damp hedgerows, chiefly in the North. 
Hab — Extremely common in Scotland and in the north of England, 
gradually losing itself towards the south, and becoming more and more inter- 
mingled with A. aculeatum, which in its turn is superseded still more southerly 
by A. angulare. In the middle and south of England, its recorded habitats are 
