WITHERING’S FERN. 105 
originally owed its existence to a single plant. The 
_ fronds rise from the ground in April and May, without 
_ any symmetrical arrangement, and often exhibit the 
-vernation already described under Multi- 
hat convolute. The stalk is about equal in length to 
the leafy part, and nearly erect ; it is clothed with blunt 
or rounded, semitransparent, uniformly coloured scales, 
each of which generally terminates in a feeble hair- 
like point. The frond is quite eglandulose ; it is long, 
arrow, pinnate and linear, the pairs of pinne, from 
} first to the eighth inclusive, being generally of 
uniform: length ; they are rather distant, and usually 
scend at an acute angle from the main stalk. The 
imme are pinnate, and the pinnules detached and 
often distant, although connected by a slender wing ; 
they have a deep notch on each side at the base. On 
are of nearly equal length, and are nearly 
is long as the corresponding superior ones: this 
paney between superior and inferior pinnules 
diminishes, and it altogether ceases with the 
it, which are of equal length: a somewhat 
discrepancy is observable in the pinnules of 
| pair of pinnw, but beyond these it becomes 
‘observable: some of the lower pinnules are 
-pinnatifid, almost pinnate: the lobes of the 
* 
