THE FERN PARADISE. 
- — the latter a dark rich purple, and the former — 
the leafy part — a dark shining green. In luxu- 
riant specimens the stem of the frond is as long as, 
— often longer than — its other part. But in small 
specimens found growing on walls the stem is 
usually much shorter than the rest of the frond. 
The latter, in its leafy part, is triangular in shape ; 
and alternately placed on opposite sides of its 
rachis or mid-rib are a number of triangular- 
shaped branches, gradually, however, as they 
diminish in size and length towards the point of 
the frond, becoming less and less distinctly trian- 
gular, until the branches near the extreme point of 
the top are mere leaflets, bluntly club-shaped and 
indented, and finally merging in the tip of the 
frond. The lowest branches on each side of the 
frond, being distinctly triangular, are again divided 
into triangular-shaped leaflets, which follow the 
same arrangement towards the point of the 
branch, as the branches follow, as already de- 
scribed, towards the point of the frond. The 
triangular- shaped leaflets at the base of the lower 
branches of the frond are, in luxuriant speci- 
mens of the Black Maidenhair Spleenwort, again 
374 
