LADY FERN. 
5 3 
those who find it in its native haunts. Its habit is 
tufted; it has the short woody root-stalk of the Male 
Fern, but is more divided ; the stalk is less scaly, and 
the sori different. The fronds, which appear in May, 
are lanceolate, twice pinnate; the pinnules deeply cut 
or pinnatifid ; the lobes sharply toothed. At first the 
vernation of the fronds is circinate, but as they ad¬ 
vance, the apex becomes free and hangs down, as in 
Nephrodium Filix Mas , assuming the appearance of a 
shepherd’s crook. The fronds are exceedingly fragile, 
and wither almost immediately on being gathered. 
The sori are very abundant, covering the back of the 
pinnule; they are shortly oblong, diverging from the 
centre of the segments, with the indusium attached 
along one side, as in other spleenworts, but showing 
an approach, by the kidney shape of some of them, to 
the Buckler Fern. 
The varieties of this fern are very numerous, many 
only dependent on situation and circumstances, but 
some decidedly persistent. Professor Lindley enume¬ 
rates seven permanent monstrous forms. 
The fructification of the Lady Fern is so abundant 
that Sir J. E. Smith has remarked: “ If a single plant 
were uninterrupted in its possible increase for twenty 
years, it would cover an extent equal to the surface of 
the whole globe.” 
The Lady Fern is distributed more or less all over 
the British Isles, its favourite resort being moist warm 
woods; but it does not shrink from the exposure of 
