December 4. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION. 
WEEKLY CALEf^DAR. 
15T 
D 
U 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
Weathrr near London in 1853. 
D 
W 
DECEMBER 4—10, 1855. 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S, 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
Tu 
December Moth. 
30.03.5—29.894 
i 
' 50—38 
W. 
50 a 7 
51 a 3 
1 55 
25 
9 
43 
338 
W 
Yellow-line Quaker Moth. 
29.569 — 23.318 
, 51 — 32 
S.W. 
04 
51 
51 
3 7 
26 
9 
19 
Th 
Incomplete Moth. 
29 . 656 — 29.424 
45—31 
W. 
— 
52 
50 
4 20 ! 
27 
8 
54 
340 
F 
Winter Tortrix Moth. 
30.137—30.835 
42—23 
N. 
— 
53 
50 
5 39 
28 
8 
28 
34 1 
S 
Panorpa hyemalis. 
29.892—29.483 
50—38 
S.W. 
01 
55 
49 
7 I I 
29 
8 
2 
342 
Son 
2 .Sunday in Advent. 
29.634—29.442 
45-30 
w. 
04 
56 
49 
sets. 
7 
35 
343 
M 
Tachyporus pubcscens. 
30.057—29.833 
39 --I 9 
N. 
— 
57 
49 
4 a 13 
1 
7 
8 
344 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations durintr the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 46.7“’, and 35.5°, respectively. The greatest heat, 58°, occurred on tlie 8 th, in IS43; and the lowest cold 14 °* 
on the 6 th, in 1641. During the period 96 days were 6 ne, and on 100 rain fell. ’ ’ 
ATHY'RIUM FTLTX FCE'MINA. 
This most graceful of all the BritLli Ferns, on t)iat 
account, well deserves its popular name of The Lady 
Fern. It is also known as the Female Shield Fern, 
Female Polypody, and Drooping Lady Fern. 
Its root is large, brown, and tufted, often becoming, 
in old plants, very large and stem-like, but even then 
lying upon the surface of the soil. The fronds are re¬ 
markably lightly formed, plume-like, and graceful, rising 
in considerable numbers from the tuft, and forming a 
j strikingly beautiful group. They vary in height from 
nine to eighteen inches; but w'hatever the height 
I (which is greatest in moist, shady, sheltered situations), 
about one-third of the lowest part of the stem is without 
leaflets, but swollen at the base, which is also usually 
covered with long scales. The general outline of the 
frond is narrow spear-head shaped. The leaflets vary 
much in their arrangement, being usually alternate, but 
sometimes opposite, and sometimes far apart, but in other 
instances very close together. They vary in number from 
twenty to forty pairs, are narrow spear-head-shaped, very 
gradually tapering to a single leafit, lower ones and 
upper ones often bending back, or drooping. The 
leafits very numerous, linear-oblong, or broad spear¬ 
head-shaped, sharp-pointed, lobed, and deeply-toothed, 
the lower lobes the largest. The reining very distinct, 
mid-rib, or vein, waved. Fruotijication on the upper- 
edge of side veins in segment-of-circle, or kidney-shaped 
masses, becoming, finally, nearly round, but never 
running together; cover, or indusium, white, at first 
oblong with a broad base, afterwards kidney-shaped, 
but not swollen; it opens towards the mid-rib, the edge 
of its opening side being finely jagged. The seeds (sori) 
are numerous and brown. 
No Fern native of the British Isles is so variable in 
its forms as this, and Mr. Charles Johnson justly 
remarks;— 
“ Such differences have afforded a wide scope for specula¬ 
tive botanists to indulge their fancies in the multiplication of 
species and varieties, and were the Avishes and advice of all 
my kind correspondents to be attended to in regard to the 
latter, I miglit e.xhaust the Greek alphabet from alpha to 
omega in prefixes. The claim advanced on behalf of a few 
of the varieties to rank as species, should be very cautiously 
examined before its admission; those who-recommend or 
incline to their adoption would do Avell to bear in mind the 
plasticity of vegetable nature, and the vei-y uncertain tenure 
of specific distinction in the aggregate, not in this class only, 
but in groups far higher in grade, and in which features of 
more determinate character can be arraigned in evidence of 
.supposed dissimilarity. The three principal forms, includ¬ 
ing the normal one, that are considered best entitled to the 
rank in question, are thus characterized;— 
“ 1. incisiim. Fronds more or less drooping, broadly lan¬ 
ceolate : pinnte distant: pinnules lanceolate, distinct, flat, 
pinnatifid with toothed lobes. Sori distinct. A. Filix-fce- 
mina, Both, 
“ 2. 7nolle, Fronds nearly erect, lax, lanceolate; piume ap¬ 
proximate : pinnules oblong, connected by the wing of the 
midrib, fiat, toothed. Sori distinct. A. molle, lioth. 
“.‘1. convexum. Fronds nearly erect, rigid, narrow-lanceo¬ 
late: pinme distant, convex : pinnules distant,linear, toothed 
or pinnatifid, convex, with deflexed margins. Sori short, 
numerous, eventually confluent. A. rliKticum, Botli. Moore, 
Hanh. 130. Aspidium irriguum ? Smith. E. B. 219!). 
This is, unquestionably, the most decided charactered of all 
the forms, and less positively associated with them by inter¬ 
mediates. 
“ Besides the numerous slight variations in habit, and in 
the outline and division of the frond, several remarkable 
monstrosities are met with in cultivation ; of these the 
variety erhpum is the most common, and its dwarf, clustered, 
and much-divided fronds resemble a tuft of curled parsley— 
a figure of one of the fronds is given by Mr. Moore, Handb. 
142. It was originally found by Mr. A. Smith, on Orah 
Hill, Antrim, Ireland, and since by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, in 
No. CCCLXNV. VoL. XV. 
