COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION. 
August 14. 
343 ! 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
AUGUST 14—20, 1855. 
Weather near London in 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. 
1853. 
Bain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Bises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
B. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock Day of 
bf. Sun. Year. 
1* 
Tu 
Coccinella mutabilis. 
29 . 836 — 29.726 72—52 
S.W. 
_ 
45 a 4 
24 a 7 
> 8 
25 
2 
4 
31 226 
I 5 
W 
Forficula borealis. 
29.845 — 29.836 71 — 43 
w 
46 
22 
8 
3(5 
3 
4 
20 ! 227 
!*> 
Th 
Locusta flavipe*. 
29.954—29.836 67—42 
! w. 
H 
48 
20 
8 
46 
4 
4 
9 1 228 
]7 
F 
Us. Kent born, 1786. 
30.038 — 29-987 64—40 
w. 
10 
49 
18 
8 
57 
5 
3 
57 229 
18 
S 
Brimstone. 
30.128—30.095 73—46 
w. 
51 
16 
9 
10 
6 
3 
4 4 230 
10 
Son 
11 Sunday after Trinity. 
30.139—30.042 76—58 
S.W. 
12 
53 
14 
9 
25 
7 
3 
31 231 
2° 
M 
Pale clouded Yellow. 
29 996-29.924 75—49 
w. 
01 
54 
12 
1 ‘ 9 
43 
3 
17 232 
Meteorology of the Week.—A t Chiswick, from observation* during the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 72.8°, and 51.5°, respectively. The greatest heat, 92 °, occurred on the 18th, in 1842; and the lowest cold, 33°, I 
on the 20th, in 1639. During the period 114 days were fine, and on 82 rain fell. 
ASPLE'NIUM GERMA'NICUM. 
This, among many other names, has also been called 
Asplenium alternifolium, because the leaflets are more 
distinctly alternate than in most other Eerns, but as all 
the species are, for the most part, alternate-leaved, this 
is an objectionable name; and so, indeed, is germanicum, 
for this species is native of other countries besides 
Germany. However, it is better to put up with an in¬ 
appropriate name, rather than to encumber the student 
with synonymes. 
Our drawing is of the life-size ; for this Fern varies 
but little in height between three and five inches. Its 
main root is black, furnished with many rootlets of 
the same colour, and crowned with a tuft from amid 
which arise the fronds. The stem of these is so deep 
a purple at the bottom as to appear black; the lower 
half is unleafleted, and the upper half is green, and 
furnished with but a few widely separated leaflets, very 
distinctly alternating. The leaflets are pale green, 
| 
narrow-wedge-shaped, tapering into slender stalks, and j 
the top of each leaflet is deeply notched, and one notch | 
in the lower leaflets is so deep as to form a lobe. There 
is no mid or main vein to the leaflets, but small parallel 
veins, some of which have the fructification along their 
inner edge. The fructification (sori) are covered by a 
narrow membrane, the opening edge of which is whole, 
or at most indented, but never jagged. The spores, 
or seed, are ripe in August, at which time the fructifica¬ 
tion on each leaflet has united together, or become ; 
confluent. 
Linnaeus considered this a mere variety of the 
Asplenium ruta-muraria, or Wall Rue; and it is decidedly 
much resembling that, as it does also Asplenium septen- 
trionale, or Forked Spleenwort, yet it is very distinct 
from each. 
I 
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 dis- | 
covered at the close of the last century, somewhere i 
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 Linnaean 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 Hyloe Crags, in 
Northumberland; and in Wales near Llanwrst, 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 thrive most and permanently in a mixture of equal ! 
proportions of sharp river sand, sandy peat, and limy 
rubbish. One-third of the pot in which it is planted 
should be filled with drainage of broken potsherds 
Nothing destroys this Fern so soon as an excess of 
water either about its roots or its foliage. 
The soil in the pot should rise to a conical point, and 
in that point the Fern should be planted with the tufted 
head of its root well above the surface, so that water 
cannot settle in it. If grown under a bell-glass, this 
No. CCCLIX. Vol. XIV. 
