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produces a spreading circle of triangular fronds, the stipes
of -which, of about the same length as the leafy part, are
thickly clothed with small, narrow, jagged, pale-coloured
scales. The fronds are bipinnate, the lowest pair of pinnæ
always longer and larger than the rest, and the pinnules on
the inferior side of the pinnæ larger than those on the superior
side. The pinnules are of an oblong-ovate figure, and
the lowest of them often divided again into a series of oblong
lobes, for the most part decurrent, but sometimes slightly
stalked ; the margin is cut into short spinous-pointed teeth.
The veins of the pinnules are alternately branched from a
sinuous midvein, and these venules give off two or three
alternate veinlets, the lowest anterior one being the sorus.
The exact ramification of the veins depends upon the degree
in which the pinnules or lobes are divided. The fructification
is distributed over the whole under surface, the sori
being pretty evenly distributed in two lines along each pinnule
or lobe ; they are covered by small reniform indusia,
which have their margin uneven, and fringed with small,
round, stalkless glands. The whole frond is covered with
similar glandular bodies.
This Fern, which is most abundant in Ireland and the
western parts of England, occurs in damp, sheltered woods.