50 THE BRITISH FERNS. 
character with the cristate variety ofthe Male Fern. The fronds 
are broad-lanceolate two to three feet high, and nine or ten inches 
broad, rather lax, and in habit corresponding generally with the 
usual forms of the species ; from which however, it differs in having 
the apices of the frond, pinnœ, and (in well-grown plants) the 
pinnules most elegantly tasselled or divided into a lash of dichoto- 
mously branched narrow segments. The tips of the pinnæ are therefore 
many times dichotomous, with the apices of the segments dilated and 
incised. The pinnules are distinct oblong acute subfaleate, pinnatifid, 
the points of the lobes becoming usually more or less incurved, as in 
rheticum, to which group this form evidently belongs. This ineurving 
is the only defect of the plant as regards its beauty, but it fre- 
quently produces a crumpled or eurled appearance; the plant is, 
nevertheless, very handsome. Mr. Wollaston has suggested, with a 
view to the use of uniform names for the corresponding varieties of all 
the species of Ferns, that this ought to be called eristatum, on account 
of its being the analogue of the crested form of the Male Fern ; but, 
however desirable, it seems impossible, without continually having 
to change the names in use, to arrive with exactness at this uni- 
formity, so that Fern-cultivators must adopt the rule which botanists 
have established on this point, and avoid mere change, which is a 
greater evil than that which it would seek to remedy. Our plate of 
this variety necessarily represents a small specimen ; when large and 
at the same time well grown, it is far handsomer. This form was, 
we believe, first found near Seven Churches, Wicklow, Ireland, by 
Mr. D. Moore; and similar forms are reported to have been found 
in Clare, by Dr. Kinahan; in Killarney, by Mr. Ogilby ; in the Lake 
district of Westmoreland—a fine form, now in the possession of Mr. 
Wollaston ; and at the foot of Ben Lawers in Scotland, by Mr. W. 
Marshall of York. [Plate LXI.— Folio ed. t. XXXIII.] 
There are several closely allied forms, some of them produced, 
under cultivation, from spores of multifidum, which it seems best to 
notice as sub-varieties, namely.— : 
— multifidum minus (M.). Apparently a dwarf form, six to eight 
inches high, multifid at the apex of the fronds, and divided into a 
little pencil-like tuft at the caudately attenuated tips of the pinne. 
It has been sent from Ilfracombe by Mr. C. Jackson. 

