210 
THE FERN WORLD 
to the situation of the plant grow from six inches to two 
feet, and the fertile fronds from twelve inches to three feet in 
length. The stipes of the barren frond is seldom more than 
one-fourth the length of the entire frond, and sometimes not 
more than one-sixth or one-seventh its length. It is of a 
reddish-brown or purplish colour, having a few chaffy scales 
of the same colour, though sometimes darker, at its base. The 
leafy portion is narrow and lance-shaped, varying from about 
half an inch to two inches broad — according to the length of 
the frond — where it is widest at its centre, tapering to a point 
at its apex, and tapering even more rapidly downwards. The 
rachis is mostly green, channelled throughout its upper side, 
rounded underneath. On each side of it, almost — at first 
appearance — in opposite pairs, but really in alternation, is a 
row of pinnules, narrow, oblong, and almost straight-edged, 
with blunt ends distinctly widened at their bases, and attached 
by the whole width of the latter, and not by stems, and some- 
times run together at their bases. The frond in fact has very 
much the appearance of a double comb. As we have seen, the 
pinnules decrease in length towards the apex of the frond, 
retaining, however, until they are merged into a sort of leafy 
point, their oblong form. But towards the base the pinnules 
dwindle to little roundish lobes often no bigger than a pin’s 
head. The venation consists of a principal vein running 
down the lobes from their bases to their apices, and of forked 
venules branching out on each side from the mid-veins to 
the margins of the lobes, where they terminate in a kind of 
club-shaped head. The fertile fronds have very much the 
same general outline shape as the barren ones. The dis- 
tinction between the two consists in the greater length of the 
former, and the narrowness or contraction of the pinnules, 
which are not more than the twelfth of an inch wide. The 
venation of the pinnules is the same as in the barren fronds. 
The spore cases are borne in lines along on each side of the 
