THU MOUNTAIN PARSLEY FERN. 
8 . 
THE MOUNTAIN PARSLEY FERN. 
Allosorus crispus. 
Plate 1 , Fig-. 7 . 
|0 compare this exceedingly pretty little 
Fern to a tnft of parsley would be to 
give it, perhaps, the best general de- 
scription which could be found for it. About 
six inches is its average height ; but we ourselves 
have had specimens, brought by a friend from the 
neighbourhood of Creetown, in Scotland, seven 
or eight inches in length : and it is even pos- 
sible that larger specimens might be obtained 
from habitats where the conditions of growth are 
unusually favourable. The Parsley Fern has 
two distinct kinds of frond — barren and fertile. 
This distinction in the fronds exists in many of 
our native Ferns ; but it is only in some that, 
as in the case of the Parsley Fern, the con- 
formation of the fertile fronds is different from 
that of the barren ones. Spores may be present 
265 
