ASPLENIUM. 
161 
brown ; the leaflets are numerous and horizontal, they 
are larger, and placed nearer together in the upper part 
of the frond, and are smaller, and more distant in the 
lower part; the colour is a full, 
rather dull green, paler under- 
neath ; the points of the leaf- 
lets are rounded, the base 
broad and straight ; all the 
margin, except that of the base 
is serrated. The whole plant 
is pervaded by a strong wood- 
land odour. 
This fern is readily distin- 
guished from the Green 
Spleenwort by its dark stem, 
and the full tint of the leaf- 
lets. 
No one who has noticed ferns at all in their native 
habitats is unacquainted with the charm of this Maiden- 
hair Spleenwort. A frequent denizen of rocky places, 
we greet its beauteous clusters with never-failing plea- 
sure. The young plants grow in a starry form, throwing 
out their delicate young fronds almost horizontally, their 
leaflets being of a bright vernal green at that stage of 
growth, and the stems a ruddy purple. A little more 
advanced in age, dark fronds appear towering over the 
tender young ones, and bending in every graceful curve. 
When growing in rock-clefts, or on old masonry, the 
fronds seldom attain a stature beyond five or six inches ; 
but see it in the rocky woodland, half- hidden under 
hazel or thorn brushwood, and the fronds are nearly a 
foot long, the caudex largely developed, and crowded 
with a vast number of stems, old and young. It is con- 
M 
