
226 BRITISH FERNS 
Lowe, and similar twin and faced clusters of capsules occasionally 
occur in true Spleenworts. The genus derives its name of Scolo- 
pendrium from a fanciful resemblance of the lines of spore heaps to 
the legs of a centipede (Scolopendra). As regards its natural 
habitats, it is very generally distributed wherever moist climatic 
conditions prevail, but is somewhat rare in Scotland. It is peculiar 
in the fact that while associating with the Spleenworts as a tenant 
of old walls and rock chinks as comparatively small plants, it is 
equally at home as much larger ones in hedgebanks, woods, and 
other places where there is plenty of good soil and a shady, moist 
environment. Its presence in the chinks of old walls, and its 
abundance in limestone formations would seem to indicate a pre- 
ference for lime, but as it grows with equal vigour under other 
conditions, lime is obviously not an essential, though probably 
beneficial. Loam, peat, and sand (2, 2, 1) suit it well with good 
drainage. Its fronds spring from a definite caudex or rootstock on 
shuttlecock lines, but not quite so definitely as with the Lasireas, 
etc. The rising fronds are densely clothed with snow-white scales. 
Coming now to its varieties, it is absolutely safe to say that the 
Hartstongue stands pre-eminent among all the Ferns of the world 
as regards the diversity of form which it has sportively assumed. 
Normally, as we have seen, of the simplest construction, a plain- 
edged, undivided, smooth-surfaced frond, resembling in shape 
a two-edged carving knife, Nature, in some subtle fashion, has played 
as it were fantasias upon this simple theme to an absolutely be- 
wildering extent ; not a feature but has been varied in not one but 
many ways. We may begin with the tapered tip ; no long search in 
localities where the Fern is plentiful is ever needed to find this tip 
expanded into several (S. v. lobatum), and in this direction there are 
‘innumerable types of crests and tassels, flat and fan-shaped, round 
and bunched, radiating points or repeated divisions, and so on, one 
and all multiplications of the tapered tip. As a converse variation 
of this, there are numerous forms in which the taper tip is replaced 
by an abrupt termination of the frond, the midrib suddenly stopping 
short, and ending as a projecting thorn in the centre of a frilled 
pocket, or projecting from the chord of a semicircular end, with the 
spore heaps arranged like the figures of a clock. The pocket may 
be in front or at the back, and in one instance, raised by ourselves, 
there are pockets in the rounded lobes at the junction of the stalk 
(S. v. perafero-sagittatum), which a jocular friend named “ breeches- 
pocketum.” Turning to the stalk, this may be multiplied by 
branching so as to carry many fronds instead of one, and this 
branching may be carried to such an extent that the end result is 
a ball of apparent moss (S. v. densum Kelway). The plain edge is 
varied in all sorts of ways, blunt-toothed, saw-toothed, deeply 
cut, fringed and frilled. The semi-heart base, where Ше frond 
proper commences, has been lengthened to form arrow-shaped 

