176 
BRITISH FERNS. 
marginal vein, which is joined by the side veins branch- 
ing from the midrib. 
Mr. Newman states that he received from Mr. Lees, 
of Worcester, a specimen of 
a curious variety of the Com- 
mon Brake. The texture of 
the frond was tender and de- 
licate in the extreme; the 
stature was dwarfish, the lobes 
of the pinnules w r ere flattened^ 
and the margin broadly 
notched. There was no fruit 
upon the frond. Mr. Lees’ 
specimen grew on a wall near 
Worcester cathedral, and si- 
milar ones have been found 
on garden walls about Dept- 
ford and elsewhere. This 
variety occurs generally in 
seedling plants, and in those grown in caves, or on stone 
walls or rocks. This is probably a barren state of the 
variety named vera. 
There is another variety with the leaflets entire, called 
by Mr. Moore integerrima. 
This is the most abundant of all our native ferns, 
forming a conspicuous object in our parks and woodlands, 
where it often attains a height beyond that of the 
human race, and forms a favourite covert for deer. 
When it grows among brushwood, it stem shoots up 
amid the protecting branches of the thorns, and then its 
feathery top expands in profuse luxuriance, furnishing 
light and elegant foliage to the starved shrubs. It ab- 
hors a chalky soil, and is seldom seen growing on such, 
