THE MALE FERN. à 203 
It is quite permanent, and a highly interesting diminutive fern. 
The fronds are from about two inches to six inches in length, very 
variable in form and character; sometimes symmetrical and single, 
and then pinnate, with oblong obtuse lobate or serrate pinne, and 
a crispy dilated apex. The fronds are, however, frequently un- 
symmetrical, being here and there depauperated or irregularly 
developed; sometimes multifid at the apex, and sometimes ramose, 
branching either from the stipes, or the lower part of the frond. 
When thus branched, one or both of the branches may become like 
the single symmetrical fronds, or may more or less closely resemble 
the irregular formed ones. It is somewhat analogous to the dwarf 
curled variety of the Lady Fern, but is not nearly so much crisped. 
It has not, so far as we know, fructified. The plant was found near 
Buxton, in Derbyshire, by James Schofield, of Rochdale, a botanist 
in humble life, from whom it appears to have passed into the hands 
of Messrs. Stansfield, of Todmorden. [Plate XX XVIII. ] 
25. subintegra (M.). This variety, which occurs in the late Mr. 
Winch’s herbarium, belonging to the Linnean Society, is doubtless a 
form closely allied to pumila (14) and abbreviata (13). As in them, 
the fronds have a very narrow lance-shaped outline ; they are dwarf, 
glandular, and merely pinnate; the pinne are short and very 
obtuse, pinnatifid half way down into blunt oblong lobes, not sinuated 
or crenated merely, as Mr. Newman’s figure (Hist. Brit. Ferns, 
3 ed. 193) indicates. The sori are large, and form a single line 
on each side the midvein, about equidistant from it and the margin. 
It is stated by Dr. Johnstone to have been gathered, long since, 
in abundance, by the Rev. J. Baird, at Ennis, in the county of 
Clare, Ireland. 
The type form of the species is sometimes met with, having 
the tips of the fronds bifid or multifid (dichotoma), but this slight 
variation is not more than subpermanent. 

