



196 | THE BRITISH FERNS. 
153. ramo-submarginatum (M.). This is one of the seedlings 
raised by Mr. A. Clapham from submarginato-multifidum (76) and is 
a broadish form, eight or ten inches high, ramose in the stipes or 
branched in the lower part of the costa, the plane portion of the lamina 
an inch or more in width, and the apex of the branches developed 
into a large multifid-crisped submarginate tuft. It is in fact very 
much like ramosum (151) but is submarginate. 
154. ramo-marginatum (Claph.). A very beautiful and distinct 
variety, part of the progeny of submarginato-multifidum (76). The 
fronds are from six to twelve inches high, ramose in the stipites, and 
usually nearly uniform in character ; the branches produce a more or 
less lengthened plane portion, which is of variable width but much 
narrowed, seldom exceeding half an inch in width, and usually 
much less, mostly becoming a little expanded and subcordate at the 
base; the apex of the frond or branch spreading into a flattish erispy 
flabellate head, consisting ofrepeatedly-branched narrowish marginate 
segments, having the sinuses usually open, and the segments over- 
lapping; these crested heads are from three to five inches across. 
The fronds are occasionally somewhat more irregularly multifid at 
the top; and sometimes they are simple, a small proportion of the 
fronds before us having the lamina three inches long, and scarcely 
wider than the stipes, and then forming the multifid head. It was 
raised from spores by Mr. A. Clapham; and a seedling of similar 
character has been sent to us by Mr. Elworthy. [Plate XCI.] 
155. ramosum majus (Claph.). This is quite unlike ramosum 
(151), but has been named in allusion to its branching stipites. 
The fronds are very vigorous, a foot and a-half in height, remarkable 
for the great thickness of the stipites, which seem as if they were 
each a combination of two or three united in one ; these stipites are 
branched, either below or near the top, or both, so that several 
fronds seem to branch out from their summit. The fronds or 
branches are broad, eordate below, attenuate at the apex, somewhat 
undulated and crenated, not unfrequently curving laterally so as to 
cross each other. The seedlings from it are more or less multifid. 
The original plant eame up accidentally in the Camellia house of 
Mr. Clapham, of Settle, Yorkshire. It is quite constant to its 
peculiarities. Another and better form, much more decidedly mul- | 

