ATHYRIUM. 
127 
has now for several years stood the test of cultivation, its 
peculiarities being retained. It has rather small fronds, 
usually about a foot, or a foot and a half long, lanceolate, 
and remarkable for the manner in which they taper from 
their broad centre, equally towards the base and apex. 
These fronds have a spreading or horizontal mode of 
growth ; their pinnules are oblong and bluntly toothed, 
the teeth being almost always quite simple, not two or 
three-notched, as is usual in the other forms ; they are 
attached closely together, at right angles with the continu- 
ously-winged rachis of the pinnse. The sori are very short, 
often curved in a horse-shoe form, and crowded. 
There are, besides, several curious monstrous varieties of 
considerable horticultural interest. One called multifidum, 
of which several variations have now been met with, has 
the tips of all the pinnae, as well as of the frond itself, 
multifid or tasselled, which gives it a very elegant appear- 
ance. Another, called depauperatum, or ramosum, is 
smaller, with the pinnae reduced and irregularly tasselled, 
and the apex of the frond more deeply split into ragged- 
looking tasselled lobes. Another, called crispum, is a 
dwarf tufted plant, no larger than a bunch of curled pars- 
ley, which it much resembles, its fronds being curiously 
