THE COMMON PRICKLY SHIELD FERN. 
Polystichum aculeatum .*— Roth. 
The common Prickly Shield Fern is one of the 
larger and hardier Ferns, preferring, however, a loamy 
Boil and the partial shade of woods or hedge-banks, 
where it grows to the height of from a foot to two feet 
or more, with a short stipes densely enveloped in rust- 
coloured membranous pointed scales. The fronds, 
from four to seven inches across, are like the Alpine 
Shield Fern, rigid and leathery in texture, of a shining 
dark green above, paler beneath, erect and spreading, 
or occasionally drooping, growing up in a circle in 
April or May, from a stout tufted stem or crown. 
The general typical form is broadly lanceolate; (in 
its young state commonly but erroneously called the 
variety lobatum, it is very narrowly lanceolate); bi- 
pinnate, with alternate pinnae, these pinnae being again 
more or less divided into a series of pinnules, either 
decurrent — that is insensibly merging in the sub¬ 
stance of the rachis which supports them, or tapering 
to a wedge-shaped base and attached to the rachis 
by the point. The pinnules are of a long crescent 
* Polypodium aculeatum ,— Linnaeus. Also Aspidium aculeatum. 
