A s p l e n iu m m a r in um , lÀnnæus.— The Sea Spleenwort.
(Plate XIV. fig. 1.)
This very handsome evergreen Pern, like the Lanceolate
Spleenwort, is a maritime species, occurring profusely on our
south-western rocky coasts and in the Channel Isles, and
extending to Prance and Spain, to Madeira and the Canaries.
In cultivation it thrives most luxuriantly in the atmosphere
of a damp hot-house, where it forms, in a comparatively
short time, a dense mass of the deepest green, and often
reacMng a foot and a half in height. In a cold frame, if
kept closed, well-established plants wiU continue in health,
progressing slowly, and never acquiring half the size of those
grown in heat. In the chmate of London it does not prosper,
nor, as far as we know, survive, if planted on exposed
rock-work. It is a tufted-growing species, with linear or
linear-lanceolate fronds, usually six or eight inches long, of
the deepest glossy green, with a smooth, rather short, dark
brown stipes. The fronds are simply pinnate, with stalked
pinnæ, connected at their base by a narrow wing which
extends along the rachis; their form is either obtusely
ovate or oblong, unequal at the base, the anterior base being
much developed, while the posterior is, as it were, cut away,
the margin being either serrated or crenated.