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ASPLENICM MARINUM. 
ASPLE'NIUM MABI'NUM. 
In English this is known now as the Sea Splcenwort, 
Sea Maidenhair, and Dwarf Sea Fern, but Gerarde, and 
others of our early herbalists, called it the Female Dwarf 
Stone Fern. 
Its main root is black, scaly, and tufted, furnished 
with many, intricately interwoven rootlets. From the 
tuft arise the fronds, which vary in height from three 
to nine inches. About one-tliird of the lower part of 
each stalk is naked, and brownish-purple, crooked at the 
bottom, and from where the leaflets commence, up to 
the summit of the stalk, there is a narrow, thick wing, 
or border, on each side, joining the base of the leaflets 
to each other. The leaflets are dark green above, but 
paler underneath, leathery, more or less alternate, very 
short-stalked, very irregular in form, but where most 
regular somewhat of an egg-shape, and almost always 
less than an inch in length, and mostly about half 
that length; often lobed on the upper edge at the 
broadest end, and the margin more or less toothed 
or cut throughout. They are nearly all of equal length, 
so that the outline of the frond is strap-like but pointed. 
The mid-vein of each leaflet is prominent, and the side- 
veins are variously forked. Attached to the upper 
edge of these side-veins is the fructification, which 
following their direction, slants sideways but upwards. 
The fructification is on almost every side-vein, and 
spreads, but is never confluent, nor even crowded. The 
membrane, or cover of the fructification, is uninterrupted, 
