THE CRESTED BUCKLER FERN. 
77 
to a point. The scales of the stipes are broad, blunt, 
and whole-coloured, and the caudex is creeping. This 
connects cristata and spinulosa. 
Lastrea spinulosa grows erect; has narrow, lance¬ 
shaped, bipinnate fronds, rather more deeply divided 
than the foregoing. The scales of the stipes are blunt 
and whole-coloured, and the caudex creeps. 
Lastrea dilatata spreads more, and has broader or 
ovate lance-shaped fronds. The stipes is clothed with 
lance-shaped scales, darker coloured in the centre than 
at the margins. The caudex is erect. 
Lastrea cemula is spreading, evergreen, and has 
fronds smaller than those of dilatata , triangular, bi¬ 
pinnate, the lobes having their edges curved back so 
as to present a hollow upper surface. The scales are 
narrow, pointed, and jagged; and the caudex is erect. 
The Narrow Prickly-Toothed Buckler Fern — L. 
spinulosa (sometimes spinosa ) —■ has a stout stem, or 
caudex, either decumbent or slowly creeping horizon¬ 
tally, with the fronds growing erect from its apex ; 
the fronds branched, sometimes tufted, slightly scaly, 
formed of the enlarged and enduring bases of the de¬ 
cayed fronds, surrounding a woody axis, the scales 
resembling those of the stipes. The fronds are from 
a foot to three or four feet high, bipinnate, the pinnae 
obliquely tapering, the inferior pinnules being larger 
than the superior. This is most obvious at the base 
of the frond, where the pinnae are broader than they 
are toward the apex. The lower pinnules on the basal 
pinnae are oblong, narrowing upwards, the margins 
deeply cut, the lobes being serrated, and the teeth 
