THE BLACK MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWORT. uti 
brown, shining, striately venose. Fibres numerous, branched, dark 
brown, tomentose. 
Vernation circinate. 
Stipes elongated, usually about as long as, sometimes longer than, 
the leafy portion of the frond, dark purplish brown, bearing about 
the base a few scales like those of the crown, smooth upwards, flat 
and slightly grooved in front, rounded behind; terminal. and adhe- 
rent to the caudex. Rachis channelled in front, from the presence 
of an elevated line on each margin decurrent from the stalk of the 
pinna, round, and with the brown colour of the base more or less 
extending upwards behind. 
Fronds including the stipes from three or four to eighteen or 
twenty inches long, sometimes even more, and from one and a half 
to seven inches across the base of the leafy portion; usually coria- 
ceous and shining dark green above, paler beneath, sometimes of 
thinner texture ; deltoid or ovate, or sometimes with the sides nearly 
parallel below, always with a tapered or acuminated apex, usually 
bipinnate or tripinnate, but occasionally almost quadripinnate when 
of large size. Pinne obliquely triangular, usually elongate and 
attenuated at the apex, the lower nearly opposite, and always as 
long as, usually longer than the rest, the upper becoming alternate 
and gradually diminishing in size; all usually pointing upwards. 
Pinnules alternate ; the basal one situated on the anterior side of the 
rachis, and considerably larger than the rest, broadly oblique ovate 
with an attenuated apex, pinnate or pinnatifid at its base, its lowest 
(secondary) pinnules or segments being ovate obtuse, and either 
pinnatifid with sharply serrated lobes below and sharply serrated at 
the apex, or merely toothed throughout. Towards the apex of the 
pinne, which are there more or less attenuated and elongated, the 
pinnules gradually become oblong and decurrent at their base; the 
same occurs on a smaller scale towards the apices of the larger lower 
pinnules themselves; while the upper pinne are like the lower 
minus their larger pinnules. In the smaller forms the pinnœ are 
less attenuated at the points, and the pinnules are shorter and 
blunter, and either barely divided to the midvein or merely lobed. 
The ultimate divisions are all notched with distinct acute serratures. 
Venation of the secondary basal pinnules in the tripinnate fronds, 

