76 - BRITISH FERNS. 
in a state of perfect rest. The stalk is slender, and 
nearly smooth; it has a few small, scattered and 
pointed scales, and some very slender articulated 
hairs, amounting in a very young state to a fine 
pubescence, but both these appear to be easily 
removed, since in nearly all the mature dried speci- 
mens I have seen they were entirely wanting: the 
stalk is jointed, like that of Tivensis; and I have 
a specimen which has two joints, a circumstance 
which I imagine is of unusual occurrence. The shape 
of the frond is long, narrow, linear and pinnate: the 
superiority over the others; they are occasionally simple, 
but generally divided into two or three branches ; they 
do not quite reach the margin of the Rinne, and the 
clusters of seeds, when present, are placed at their 
extremity. 
- In Great Britain this little fern has only been 
recorded as discovered in one Welsh and two ae 
