Polystichum Lonchitis, Roth, Newman. 
Aspidium Lonchitis, Swartz, E. J. Lowe. 
HOLLY, or ROUGH ALPINE SHIELD FERN. 
Root — Black, wiry, forked ; caudex oblique, short, clothed 
with chaffy scales. 
Fronds — Tufted, spreading, sub-erect, rigid, linear-lanceo- 
late ; pinnate ; dark green, paler beneath ; rachis scaly. 
Stipes — Short, clothed with chaffy scales. 
Pinnae — Shortly stalked, undivided ; set obliquely upon 
the rachis, often overlapping, falcate-lanceolate, or wedge- 
shaped ; rounded below, acutely auriculate above ; spinuloso- 
serrate, acuminate. 
Veins — Forked from the costa to the marginal teeth. 
Fructification — Sori flat, circular, crowded upon the 
upper part of the fronds, in two or more lines ; indusium 
large, orbicular. 
Habitat — Rocky clefts, or debris in alpine and moun- 
tainous places. 
This species has been added to the catalogue of Derbyshire Ferns, since the 
publication of the first edition of this work, by Reginald Darwin and John 
Huish, Esq., who discovered it growing with Asplenium viride, on the 25th of 
June, 1863, in a rocky gorge near Fern, Buxton. It is a northern species, 
extending from Greenland to Kamschatka. In British Columbia, the fronds 
attain two feet in length. 
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