ASPLENIUM FONTANUM. 
27 
ASPLE’NIUM FONTA'NUM. 
This bears the English names of the Rock Polypody, 
Slender-stemmed Polypody, and Smooth Rock Spleenwort. 
Why the specific name fontanum was ever applied to it 
we oannot discover, and such specific name is sin¬ 
gularly inappropriate, since so far from delighting in 
fountains, it is found only on dry rocks and old walls. 
The root is dark-colourcd, short, and thick, furnished 
with many rootlets, and terminating in a scaly tuft, 
from among which arise the fronds. These fronds vary 
in height from three to eight inches, hut rarely exceed 
four inches. They grow in an erect tuft, as represented 
in our drawing. A very small portion of the stem, or 
stipe, is without leaflets, and the scales of the root are 
continued up a part of that, unleafleted portion. All the 
leafleted part of the stem has a narrow wing of a leafy 
texture running up opposite sides, between the stalks 
of the leaflets. The leaflets are pale green, alternate, 
and lengthened egg-shaped, some being divided into 
lealits similarly shaped, but others near the top of the 
stem are only deeply notched. The fructification, or 
sori, is very accurately described by Mr. Moore as 
being produced two or three (sometimes five, as in our 
magnified specimen) on a leaflet, on the side veins, and 
near where they join the mid-vein. The sori, he adds, 
nre short, oblong, sometimes distinot, hut often running 
together (confluent), and, occasionally, occupying nearly 
the whole under surface of every leaflet. “They are 
