130 
HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 
margin of the indusium fringed with capillary or hair-like 
segments, while the sorus in Asplenium is not thus curved, 
and the margin of the indusium is either quite entire or 
very slightly jagged. The Spleen worts are also evergreen, 
while Athyrium is deciduous. There are nine species of 
Asplenium indigenous to Britain, all of them small plants, 
interesting to the cultivators of Ferns. 
The word Asplenium comes from the Greek asplenon; 
a name applied by old authors to some kind of Fern 
possessed of supposed virtues in curing diseases of the 
spleen. 
Asplenium septentrionale, Hull. 
The Forked Spleenwort. (Plate XII. fig. 3.) 
A rare and diminutive Fern. The habit is tufted, large 
masses being sometimes formed; the fronds themselves 
are very small, from two to four or six inches long, seldom 
longer, slender, dull green, with a longish stipes, which is 
dark purple at the base. • The leafy part—if, indeed, it 
can here be called leafy—is of a narrow elongate lance¬ 
shaped form, split near the end into two or sometimes 
three alternate divisions, or in the smaller fronds into the 
same number of teeth ; each of the divisions of the frond 
