THE LANCEOLATE SPLEENWORT 
361 
accustomed to their shadowy corners, to enable you to 
discern the bright-green ferny forms which revel in such 
chosen retreats. 
Description. — For the size of this Fern its rootstock is 
very thick, dark -brown in colour, tufted, and covered some- 
what densely with scales. The stipes is short, owing to the 
elongation of the leafy portion of the frond. It is not, in 
fact, more than a third of the length of the latter, and is 
often less than a third. In colour it is of a dark chestnut, 
and this colour is often extended for some little distance 
along the rachis, more frequently along the under side 
of the rachis, but sometimes on its upper side, and 
occasionally on both sides. The upper part of the rachis is 
a bright green, and the leafy part of the frond is of the same 
shade of green. The lengths of the fronds vary according 
to circumstances, from about four, five, or six, to eighteen 
inches the longest specimens, as we have already stated, 
being mostly found in the congenial situation afforded by 
a dripping sea cave. The form of the frond, as its name in- 
dicates, is distinctly lance- shaped, broadest about the middle, 
tapering to an acute point at the apex, and tapering also 
downwards — the base in this latter respect being essentially 
different from Acliantum-nignim, which is triangular and 
broadest at the base. The pinnae are, more nearly than in 
Adiantum-nigruvi, set opposite each other in pairs along the 
rachis and almost at right angles with the latter. They are 
somewhat bluntly triangular in form, broadest at the base, 
distinctly stalked, and again divided into somewhat irre- 
gularly shaped, but mostly into quadrate or four-sided 
pinnules, which in their turn are sometimes deeply cleft into 
lobes, if the frond be large and highly developed, but always 
sharply indented and decreasing in size towards the apices of 
the pinnae. The venation consists of a waved mid- vein in 
each pinnule, and from that, simple or forked, venules 
