ri:
Ili
N i
!
THE ALTERNATE-LEAVED SPLEENWORT.
ASPLENIUM GERMANICUM.
A. fronds linear oblong, broadest at tbe base, pinnate orsub-bi-
pinnato ; pinnæ alternate, ascending, narrow wodge-sbaped, toothed
at the apex, entire below, the lower ones three-cleft ; sori elongate
central ; indusium entire. [Plate LXXX A.]
A s p l e n iu m g e e j ia n ic u m , Weis, PI. Crypt. 2 9 9 . Gray, Nat. A r r . Brit. PL
ii. 13. Nenmian, Hist. Brit. Ferns, 2 e d . 2 6 5 . Deakin, Florigr. Brit. It .
77, fig. 1 5 9 7 . Babingtm, Man. Brit. Bot. i ed . 4 2 6 . Bentham, Handb.
Brit. FI. 6 3 3 . Lowe, Nat. Hist. Ferns, v . t . 3 B. M om , Handb. Brit.
Ferns, 3 e d . 1 9 1 ; Id ., Ferns o f Gt. B rit. t . 41 B ; Id ., In d . Fil. 13 4 .
Lamarck, Ene. Bot. ii. 3 0 9 . Willdenow, Sp. P lant, v . 3 3 0 . Sprengel, Syst.
Veg. iv . 86. Fresl, Tent. Pterid. 1 0 8 . L in k , F il. Sp. 9 7 . Sturm, FI.
( F a rm . ) t . 5. H a ifl. Aspl. Eur. 53.
A s p l e n i u m a l t e e n i f o l i u m , Wulfen, Jacq. Miscell. Aust. ii. 5 1 , t . 5, fig . 2.
Smith, Eng. Bot. x x x i i . t . 2 2 5 8 ; Id ., Eng. FI. 2 e d . iv . 2 9 6 . Hooker A
Arnott, Brit. FI. 7 e d . 5 8 8 . Sowerby, Ferns o f Gt. Brit. 6 6 , t , 33.
A s p l e n i u m B e e y n i i , Betzius, Ohs. Bot. i. 3 2 . Swartz, Sijn. F il. 8 5 . Schkuhr,
Krypt. Gew. 7 7 , t . 8 1 . Fée, Gen. Fil. 1 9 0 . Nxjman, Sxjll. FI. Europ. 4 8 2 .
Koch, Syn. 2 e d . 9 8 3 . Fries, Sum. Veg. 82. Svensk Bot. t . 5 3 4 . Ledebour,
PI. Boss. iv . 5 2 0 . Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Bot. Lips. 76 ; Id ., Asplen. 1 4 2 .
A m e s iu m g e e m a n i c u m , Newman, Hist. B rit. Ferns, 2 e d . 1 0 ; 3 e d . 2 6 8 ; Id .,
Phytol. 1 8 5 1 , App. v ii.
A s p l e n i u m m u e a l e , g . Bernhardi, Schrad. Journ. Bot. 1 7 9 9 , i. 3 1 2 .
P h y l l it is h e t e e o p i iy l l a , Mcench, Method. 7 2 4 .
SOOLOPENUEIUM ALTEENIFOLIUM, B.oth, FI. Germ. i ii. 6 3 .
T a e a c h ia g e e m a n ic a , Presl, Epim. Bot. 79.
Caudex short, tufted, thiekish, scaly. Scales small, narrow lanceolate,
dark brown, striato-reticulate. Fibres slender, branched.
Vernation circinate.
Stipes terminal and adherent to the caudex, slender, nearly or
quite as long as the frond, dark purpKsh brown below, green above,
and as well as the rachis smooth.
Fronds from two to six inches high, narrow linear ohlong, somewhat
broadest at the base, pinnate, subbipinnate, or, when very
luxuriant, bipinnate below, paKsh green, scarcely sub-coriaceous.
Pinnce alternate, ascending, remote, the lower ones largest and most
developed ; in small plants narrow-obovate or cuneate, cut into two
or three narrow lobes, the lohes simple or toothed, the apex unequally
toothed, the base tapering into a kind of petiole ; in the larger
specimens more distinctly stalked, and sometimes decidedly bipinnate
with one distinct cuneate pinnule. The upper pinnæ become less
lobed, hut are unequally toothed at the apex, which is blunt, and
they are falcatoly curved inwards. The apex of the frond consists
of several coalesoent smaller narrow lobes.
Venation consisting of from two to four series of furcate divisions
of the vein which constitutes the vascular bundle of tho footstalk ;
there is no costa or midvoin, but one of the venules extends to each
of the teeth, so that the pinnule is occupied by from two to five or
six flabellately-forked nearly parallel venules.
Fructification on the back of the frond, occupying all the pinnæ.
Sori linear elongate, on two or three of the central venules, opening
inwardly from each margin, at length confluent. Indusium a thin
narrow membrane with the margin entire or somewhat wavy. Spore-
cases obliquely obovate, brown. Spores ronghish or mnriculate,
roundish-oblong.
Buration. The caudex is perennial. The plant is evergreen or
suh-evergreen, the fronds being more or less persistent
This plant, though almost invariably kept distinct by writers on
Ferns, has not unfrequently at the same time and by the same pen
been marked as a dubious species, having a supposed relationship
either to the Wall Rue, or the Forked Spleenwort. Without doubt
it stands intermediate between these two Ferns, but it seems to us
perfectly distinct from either of them. The subbipinnate variety
of Wall Rue called cuneatum, is the only form which at all nearly
resembles our present subject, and that is altogether a stouter more
coriaceous plant, not lobed as this is, bnt toothed and having the
apical teeth much more uniform. The Forked Spleenwort again is
much more coriaceous and less leafy, its lobes being in truth rather
raohiform than foliaceous, and its teeth, when present, very different,
being rathor like distant linear fragments split away from the margin,
than serratures, which the few teeth of Asplenium germanicum more
(ri:i
! ..
■ -Ii-
■''71
III