BRITISH PER MS. 
53 
BLECHNUM SP1CANT (THE HARD FERN). 
WE carefully abstain from calling this species Lomaria, because 
its form of fructification — which determines the species — is 
that of Blechnum, differing from that of Lomaria in the fact 
that each line of spore heaps has a special independent 
membranous cover springing from well inside the edge of the 
pinna, while in Lomaria the pinna edge itself forms the 
cover by rolling backwards. As a very cursory examination 
determines this, and scientific botanists themselves have 
separated the two genera for the reason stated, it is a curious 
anomaly that the name Lomaria should be adopted. Blechnum 
spicant is a solitary species of the genus in Great Britain, and 
has earned the name of Hard Fern by the tough leathery texture 
of its intensely dark green fronds. These are normally once 
divided like two blunt and widely toothed combs set back to 
back ; a further and unmistakable characteristic is that two 
kinds of fronds are produced, fertile and barren, the former 
being erect and longer than the other, and the pinnae much 
narrower, only wide enough indeed to bear the twin lines of 
spore heaps with the midrib between and the indusia or covers. 
In favourable situations the plant assumes fairly large proportions, 
the barren fronds as much as 2 feet long, and the fertile 
ones little short of 3 feet high. It dislikes lime, and revels 
in a loose damp leafy or peaty soil, though thriving also in 
a smaller form in friable loam alone. Damp hedge banks, 
ditch and stream sides, and shady woody slopes are its 
pet abiding places ; it also loves moorland, and is there found 
in quantity associated with Heather and Lastrea montana. It 
is perfectly evergreen, but under culture its dislike of lime 
must be remembered, and hard water sedulously avoided. The 
two types of fronds are maintained in all its varieties but 
anomalum, not rare in hilly districts, which apes its foreign 
relatives by bearing spores on uncontracted fronds, and thus 
lodges an additional protest against the Lomaria christening. It 
is not difficult to raise from spores, and the progeny come, as 
a rule, peculiarly true, hence most of the forms listed are 
wild finds. The species is very widely distributed over the 
British Isles, and attains a high elevation on the mountains. 
Its chief antipathies are drought, aerial or terrestrial, and 
hard water. Curiously enough, though exotic species are 
numerous, very few seemingly have sported, while our native 
species has been fairly prolific in very marked forms. 
