34 
A8PEENIUM GERMANICUM. 
fication on each leaflet has united together, or become 
confluent. 
Linnteus considered this a mere variety of the Asple- 
niurn ruta-muraria, or Wall Rue; and it decidedly 
much resembles that, as it does also Asplenium septen- 
trionale, or Forked Spleenwort, yet it is very distinct 
from each. 
It is found, but not abundantly, in Germany, Switzer, 
land, Italy, France, Hungary, and Sweden; but was not 
known to be a native of Great Britain until discovered, 
at the close of the last century, somewhere about 1792 , 
by Mr. Dickson. He found it on some rocks in the 
south of Scotland, and published his discovery in the 
second volume of the Linnsean Society’s Transactions 
In that country it has been found on rocks in the Tweed, 
near Kelso, in Roxburghshire; on the Stenton Rocks, 
near Dunkeld, in Perthshire; and near Dunfermline, in 
Fifeshire. In England it has been found at Borrow- 
dale and Scaw-fell, in Cumberland; on Ilyloe Crags, in 
Northumberland; and in Wales near Llanrwst, and in 
the pass of Llanberis. These are the only localities at 
present known as its dwellings, and even there it is not 
abundant, so that it is one of the rarest of our Ferns. It 
seems entirely to have been passed unnoticed by Gerarde 
and others of our earliest botanists. 
In its wild state its fronds die during the winter; but 
cultivated in a cold greenhouse, from which frost is ex¬ 
cluded, it remains evergreen. 
It requires a very light, poor soil, and we have found 
it tlirive most and permanently in a mixture of equal 
