148 
The Ferns of South Africa. 
A. Ruta-muraria. Pappe and Rawson, quoted by Kuhn, Fil. Afr. 1 1 5 
(not A. Ruta-muraria, L.). 
Top of Muizenberg Mountains, in crevices of rocks (Hon. R. 
W. Rawson, 1857). 
Lady Barkly adds that only one plant was found, and further 
search has proved vain. 
80. Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum. Linn. 
Plate LXIII. Fig. 2. Small frond, natural size. b. Pinnule of 
var. obtusum. 
Crown procumbent, short, slightly branched, glabrous, or 
slightly paleaceous, thickened by the enlarged basis of decayed 
fronds. Fronds deltoid, coriaceous, glabrous, two to three-pinnate, 
varying from three inches long and two broad to nine inches long 
and six broad, with numerous, alternate, or sub-opposite pinnae, 
and a dark, naked, furrowed stipe, one to six inches long, swollen 
into a fleshy base below. Lower pinnae largest, deltoid, stalked, 
one to three inches long, one to one and a half inches broad ; in 
large fronds two-pinnatifid, with three to four pairs of distant, 
stalked, deltoid, pinnatifid, toothed pinnules, one inch long, half- 
inch broad ; in small fronds, only the lower pinnules separate, 
roundly ovate, lobed and toothed, with upper pinnules close, 
rounded, confluent, and upper pinnae also confluent. Pinnae- with 
a broad point, and rounded at the apex; lobes and pinnules 
broadly rounded, all sharply toothed, but with the teeth short and 
not divergent. Sori abundant, one to one and a half lines long, in 
two rows in each lobe or pinnule, slightly oblique, and reaching 
halfway from the centre to the edge, afterwards confluent in one 
long mass of capsules. 
A. Adiantum-nigrum. Linn.; Schl. Adum. 31, tab. 17 ; Pappe and 
Rawson, 21; Moore’s Index, 109; Hk. and Bkr. Syn. Fil. 214; 
Kuhn, Fil. Afr. 95. 
A. tabulari. Schrad. Gott. Anz. 1818, 916. 
A. argutum. Kaulf. enum. 176. 
