ASPLENIITM. 
131 
has its margin cut into two or more sharp-pointed teeth, 
the points of the larger teeth being very frequently bifid. 
The veins are reduced to a minimum ; one vein enters 
each lobe, or if the frond is not lobed the stipes is conti- 
nued upwards in the form of a vein ; this becomes forked 
so as to send up one vein to each of the teeth into which 
the part is divided ; and three or four long linear sori are 
produced in a very crowded manner within this small 
space ; so that when, from age, the sori burst open the 
indusium, the spore-cases form a confluent mass over the 
whole under-surface. 
The confluent mass of spore-cases arising from the 
crowded position of the sori, has led some authors to con- 
sider this plant an Acrostichum^ the mark of which is to 
have the whole under-surface thus covered. Some of the 
sori being face to face, growing as they do from the inward 
side of each vein, and almost in juxtaposition, other botan- 
ists have been led to think it a ^colopendrium^ the mark 
I of which is to have the sori confluent in pairs face to face. 
! If, however, the plant is examined while young, it will be 
; seen that these resemblances are unreal, and that it is 
1 truly an Asplenium. It is thus that it has been called 
by the names of Acrostichum septentrionale and Scolopen- 
K 2 
