202 
THE FERN WORLD 
which have distilled upon them. It will be supposed from 
what has been said, that it is in the most moist and cool of 
moist and cool situations that the Lady Fern is to be found 
— on the shadowed hanks of running streams, where the 
.passing water dashes amongst stones and fills the air with 
spray; between the projecting stones at the sides and at the 
feet of waterfalls; in the dampest hollows of woods and 
coppices where the ground is saturated by oozing water ; or 
upon the damp sides of shady hedge-banks ; but, wherever 
growing, always adding a singular charm to its surroundings. 
Description. — The delicately beautiful aspect of this 
plant has suggested its common name of ‘Lady Fern,’ and 
its specific name of filix-foemina. Its generic name, Athyrium, 
is derived from a Greek word, athyros, ‘opened,’ and refers to 
the opening out of the indusium when it has been burst by 
the growth of the spore cases. The rootstock of the Lady 
Fern is thick and tufted, generally raised somewhat above 
the soil, and it has an abundance of fibrous rootlets. From 
the crown of the rootstock grow up a mass of light-green 
herbaceous fronds, which vary in length according to the 
position of the plant, from a foot to as many as five feet. 
The stipides are usually about one-third the entire length of 
the fronds, light green or yellowish in colour, but sometimes 
purple, and furnished with a few scales at their bases. They 
are very brittle and herbaceous. The fronds are lance- 
shaped, tapering towards the base and towards the apex, and 
widest about the centre. They are bi-pi nuate, the pinnae — 
lance-shaped and tapering— placed in pairs on opposite sides 
of the rachis — which is channelled throughout on its upper 
side — or alternately along it on each side towards the apex. 
The pinnae are divided into serrated pinnules, somewhat 
oblong and blunt pointed, and usually placed in pairs along 
on opposite sides of the mid-stems, each pair becoming 
smaller towards the apices of the pinnae, until their distinc- 
