THE BROAD PRICKLY-TOOTHED BUCKLER FERN. 247 
The stipes varies from about one-third to one-half the entire length 
of the frond, and is clothed sparingly upwards, more thickly near the 
base, with ovate bluntish and ovate-lanceolate pointed scales, which 
are generally of a pale brown, some but not all having a darker 
central blotch or streak, and many of them, as seen on the growing 
plant, becoming a good deal appressed to the stipes, whilst a few 
remain spreading, this peculiarity being of course far less obvious 
after the fronds are pressed. The stipites, rachides, and under surface 
of the fronds, are densely covered with stalked glands. The fronds are 
from two to four feet high, oblong-lanceolate in the larger plants, or 
ovate-lanceolate in the smaller ones, growing nearly erect around 
the stout pale-coloured crown which terminates the thick tufted 
ascending or slowly creeping caudex; bipinnate above, tripinnate 
below. The pinne are ascending, and twisted so as to form nearly 
a horizontal plane, the lower ones broad and unequally deltoid, the 
upper lanceolate-ovate, the longest nearly six inches long, and 
about two inches broad just above the base. The pinnules are 
lanceolate-ovate, or pyramidately ovate, acute, averaging nearly an 
inch in length over the greater part of the frond, the posterior ones 
on the lower pinne longest, those of the lowest pine being an inch 
and three-quarters long ; the lower ones stalked, the rest successively 
decurrent, adnate, and then confluent; they are pinnatifid almost 
down to the midvein; their lobes oblong, adnate, incised or toothed, 
the serratures all tipped by a bristle-like point. The fructification 
is copious over the whole frond, the sori forming two lines on each of 
the smaller pinnules, or on the lobes of the larger ones, and being 
covered by indusia, which are fringed with stalked marginal glands. 
This variety was first discovered by Mr. Bennett, of Brockham, in a 
boggy part of Ankerbury Hill, near Lydbrook, in the Forest of 
Dean, Gloucestershire. The same form has since been obtained from . 
— Essex : Epping Forest, H. Doubleday. Sussex: wood at Hastings, 
J. Stidolph. Surrey: Barnes (rather less glandular and with more 
narrow scales), T. M. Shropshire : wood below Linley, near Brose- 
ley, G. Maw. Westmoreland : Windermere, F. Clowes. We are 
indebted to all these gentlemen, as well as to Mr. Purchas, for 
specimens. The Windermere plant has a more creeping caudex, 
but it is not otherwise distinguishable from the rest. 

