36 
BRITISH FERNS. 
are considered more hardy. It succeeds best in a 
turfy peat soil without any admixture, and bears 
drought better than would be imagined from its love 
of damp shady situations. It is better adapted for 
out-door cultivation than for glass. 
BROAD PRICKLY-TOOTHED OR CRESTED 
FERN. 
NEPHR ODIUM DILA TA TUM. 
(Plate III. Fig. 2.) 
SYNONYMS. 
Lastrea dilatata, Presl, Babington, Aspidium dilatatum , Hooker and 
Moore. Arnott. 
Lophodium multijlorum , Newman. 
This is one of the most common and generally 
distributed of British ferns, growing in woods and on 
sheltered hedgebanks everywhere. It is classed by 
many botanists as a variety only of Nephrodium 
spinulosum . Sir W. Hooker favours this view, though 
by Mr. Moore and Mr. Lowe it has many varieties 
attached to itself; but who shall decide where botanists 
disagree ? For all our purposes we may consider it, I 
think, a distinct species. Unlike spinulosum , the 
rhizome is not all creeping, it rarely branches, but 
forms a strong, enduring, erect, stem-like base, that 
not unfrequently rises from six inches to a foot above 
the soil. The fronds are pinnate ; the pinnae nearly 
opposite; the pairs gradually approximate from the 
nase towards the apex ; the first and second pairs are 
