210 THE BRITISH FERNS. 
“ forming large-angled areoles next the costa, narrower oblique ones 
often extending to the margin." According to the view we take of 
the genera of Ferns, these net-veined species require to be separated 
from those with free veins, and we have accordingly in our Index 
Filicum adopted the name of Blechnidium for the net-veined plant 
above referred to, which thus becomes Blechnidium melanopus. 
The name of the present genus comes from blechnon, a Greek 
word applied to some kind of Fern. 

BRITISH SPECIES AND VARIETIES. 
B. Spicant: a perennial with dimorphous pectinate-pinnatifid fronds. 
(a) Fronds narrow-lanceolate, or normal in outline. 
var. lancifolium : fronds very narrow, almost linear, with short blunt lobes 
below, entire and caudate in the upper part, the fertile sparingly 
lobed below, spicate upwards. 
war. subserratum: fronds narrowish ; segments faleately curved forwards, 
erenately serrate on the posterior side, the anterior margin entire. 
var. imbricatum: fronds short lanceolate, with crowded densely imbricated 
segments, the fertile of the same form pinnate, the pinne crowded 
acute; stipites and rachides thick, channelled in front. 
var. strictum: fronds elongate-lanceolate, with distant subsymmetrical 
crenately toothed segments, the fertile of the same form or some- 
what narrowed. with narrow obscurely erenate segments. 
(b) Fronds multifid or ramose. 
war. ramosum ; fronds branched, the apices of the branches densely mül- 
tifid-erisped forming close obtuse tufts ; fertile fronds similar. 
var. multifurcatum : fronds often divided below, the apices of fronds or 
branches repeatedly forked, forming a spreading tuft of acutely 
prolonged segments. 


