RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF FERNS. 
15 
to shelter their frailer brethren. Beautiful ferns were growing in rich 
profusion around me, but these were triangular in form, and their 
seed masses had kidney-shaped covers. Some stones lying in the 
brook tempted me to cross, and I succeeded in doing so without 
wetting my feet ; under the deep bank on the other side, the fronds 
bowing so as nearly to dip into the stream, I espied some ferns of the 
long narrow form I was seeking. The plant was about a foot and a 
half high, eight fronds springing in a circle from the rhizoma, each 
bending outwards, so as to form a basket-shape. They were broad in 
the centre, and tapered to each extremity. The pinnae were placed 
alternately on the stem, which was thickly beset with scales the colour 
of burnt sienna. The leaflets or pinnules were scalloped sharply, and 
a kind of ear at the base of each gave them somewhat of a crescent 
form. When I gathered a frond I found it very tough, and requiring 
great force to detach it. My lens showed me the round covers on the 
seed masses with their central attachment, but I was at first at a loss 
to know which Polystichum it was. It recurred to my mind that I 
had heard a great botanist explain the difference between two of these 
ferns. “The angular one,” he said, “when held up to the light, 
showed a clear line between every leaflet, while in the other the leaf- 
lets were so close at the base as to show no light between them.” I 
held one up to the rich light of the setting sun ; the leaflets seemed 
to run together — another, the same — this, then, was the common 
Prickly Shield fern. I found other plants with the leaflets as finely 
cut, but somewhat broader, and the fronds widening less at the 
centre — holding it up, I was gladdened by the sight of the clear 
line. Here, then, I had two of the desired members of this family, 
Pohjstickumaculeatum and angulare (Plate II., Figs. 1, 2, and A). Very 
near the brook I found a fern with similar characteristics, but the 
fronds were smaller, the leaflets larger and more decidedly lobed at 
the base, and the colour was of a darker and more vivid green. In 
all these particulars it answered to fhe description of the Lobed 
Prickly Shield fern (P. lobatum , Fig. 3) ; my book opined that 
