August 28. COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 383 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
Weather near London in 1853. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bf. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
AUG. 28—SEPT. 3, 1855. 
Barometer. Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
28 
To 
Small Heath. 
30.438—30.425 82—50 
N. 
. - 
7 a 5 
65 a 6 
7 a 47 
16 
1 11 
240 
29 
W 
Wall. 
30.432—30.319 84—45 
W. 
— 
9 
53 
8 0 
17 
0 54 
241 
30 
Th 
Speckled Wood. 
30.252—30.127 84—54 
W. 
— 
10 
51 
8 15 
18 
0 36 
242 
31 
F 
Brown Hair-streak. 
30.260-30.157 73—40 
N.E. 
— 
12 
49 
8 31 
19 
0 18 
243 
1 
S 
White C. Moth. 
30.314—30.274 72—39 
E. 
— 
14 
47 
8 49 
20 
0 1 
244 
2 
Son 
13 Sunday after Trinity. 
30.353—30.339 74—37 
E. 
— 
15 
| 45 
9 13 
21 
0 20 
245 
3 
M 
Poplar Hawk Moth. 
30.333—30-282 78—37 
E. 
— 
! 17 
1 42 
9 43 
© 
0 39 
246 
Meteorology of the Week.— At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest tern- 
peratures of these days are 70.8°, and 49 .1°, respectively. The greatest heat, 85°, occurred on the 1st, m 1843; and the lowest cold, 32°, 
on the 29 th, in 1650. During the period 119 days were fine, and on 77 rain fell. 
ASPLE'NIUM LANCE OLA'TUM. 
In English this has been called Spear-shaped Spleen- 
wort. Lanceolate Spleenwort, and White Oalc Fern. 
The main body of the root is black, tufted, and 
covered with bristle-like scales; the rootlets are also 
black and numerous. The stem, or stipe, of each 
frond, up to where the leaflets commence, is purplish- 
black, and throughout its entire length is more or less 
sprinkled with fine, bristly scales. The length of the 
fronds varies as much as from three to fifteen inches. 
Mr. Moore says they are sometimes eighteen inches. 
They attain the greatest height when favourably cul¬ 
tivated under shade in a warm greenhouse. The speci¬ 
men from which our drawing was taken is six inches 
high. The outline of the entire leafy portion of each 
frond is spear-head shaped, or lanceolate, to which the 
specific name alludes. The upper half of each stem 
and the leaflets are very bright, pale green. The spear¬ 
head shape of the frond is caused by the lowest leaflets 
being shorter than those immediately above them, and 
then the upper leaflets again gradually diminish in 
size. The leaflets have a triangular, or arrow - head 
outline, and though sometimes in opposite pairs, yet 
they are generally alternate; they for the most part 
stand at a right angle with the stalk, but sometimes 
droop slightly. The leafits are reversed - egg-shaped, 
blunt at the upper end, but deeply, and sharply-toothed, 
the teeth being as fine as bristles; the leafits at their 
lower end taper off gradually into a fine foot-stalk; 
they have a slightly twisted mid-vein, from which 
proceed forked side-veins, one to each division between 
the teeth. The fructification, or sori, is in irregular- 
placed masses, several on each leafif, at first longisli 
oval in form, but gradually running together, and 
spreading over nearly the whole leafit, and becoming of 
a rusty brown; the cover or membrane (indusium) is 
oblong, whitish, with a jagged margin, always sepa¬ 
rating at the side towards the mid-vein. The spores., 
or seeds, are ripe in August and early in September. 
This species is found in the crevices of rocks and on 
old walls in the south of England. Upon rocks on 
the north side of the Isle of Jersey, and other parts of 
the Channel Islands; about St. Ives and other places 
in Cornwall; at Tonbridge Wells and its vicinity ; and 
in a few places in Oxfordshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, 
Sussex, Somerset, Carnarvonshire, Denbighshire, Gla¬ 
morganshire, Merionethshire, and Pembrokeshire. Mr. 
Bolton states that he found it on a wall in a village 
near the river Wharf in Yorkshire, and Link says it 
occurs near Gilphead, in west Scotland, and in Ireland, 
but these localities require confirmation. Mr. Sweet, in 
his “ Bristol Flora,” says it occurs there in “ Oldbury 
Court Woods, and in lanes about Stapleton. The area 
of this plant is not more than half-a-mile, occurring on 
the Old Red-Sandstone.” 
Sometimes the outline of the frond becomes almost 
triangular, the lowest leaflets being the longest, and it 
is then very much resembling Asplenium adicintum- 
nigrum, so much so, that Mr. Bolton thought it only a 
variety, but from this species it is always to be distin¬ 
guished by the form and position of the fructification. 
The first author we find mentioning the Asplenium 
lanceolatum, is Lyte, in his translation of Dodoen’s 
Herbal, published in 1578, if it is what he there calls 
Dryopteris Candida, or White Oak Fern ; and if so, 
Lyte adds—“ Mathiolus and Ruellius, both men of 
great knowledge, do call it in Latin, Osmunda. Where¬ 
fore we, considering the property of this herb in tak¬ 
ing away hair, do think good to name this herb in our 
language, Osmund Baldpate, or Pilled Osmund ”—to 
pill being an old word for to rob. We are not certain 
that either Lyte, or Johnson (the editor of Gerarde), or 
Parkinson, really alluded to this species of Asplenium 
under the title of Dryopteris Candida, but we bow to 
No. CCCLXI. You. XIV. 
