r
full expansion in July, and the seed appears to have reached
maturity in September. The fronds are perfectly evergreen ;
they continue throughout the winter entirely uninjured by the
severest frosts, and linger on till late in the succeeding summer :
they are of so rigid and durable a character, that I have often
been able to detect the growth of four successive summers still
attached to the same rhizoma ; not indeed all of them green and
flourishing, hut perfectly undecayed ; and it was in this way
that I first discovered that the same rhizoma produced fronds of
widely different character.
The general form of the frond may he termed lanceolate, hut
no general description of its cutting will be applicable to all its
varieties. The frond at the head of the preceding
page, together with the pinnæ (figs. a
•Ay and b in the annexed cut) represent the
variety described in the English Flora, under
BTR, the name of Aspidium angulare. In cultivation
this variety has become even more
B light and feathery, as represented at fig. 6,
page 37. I do not take the name merely
from the description, although that is suf-
ficiently accurate, hut from a careful examination
of the fronds in the Smithian Herbarium,
from which the description was undoubtedly
compiled. The frond is pinnate ; the pinnæ
also pinnate ; the pinnulæ more or less distant,
seldom touching each other, stalked,
obscurely ovate, serrated, spiny, and each auricled
or lobed at the base, the lobe pointing
towards the apex of the pinna ; the pinnula
nearest the rachis on the upper side of the
pinna is always in a greater or less degree
superior in size to the rest. Sometimes this
pinnula is distinctly divided into lobes. (See
figs. )3 y in the annexed cut.)
The pinna fig. c represents the variety to
which Sir J. E. Smith retains the Linnean
name of aculeatum, and describes its pinnulæ
as “ pointed, and somewhat crescent-shaped.”
I selected for cultivation a specimen closely agreeing with that
in the Smithian Herbarium, and find it now produces pinnæ
resembling fig. b.
The frond in the above cut, marked A, rather interrupts the
series, from its remarkably elongate and linear form, and from
having its pinnæ placed at right angles, or nearly so, with the
rachis : in the division of the pinnæ it presents no remarkable
characters. I am indebted to Mr. H. Doubleday, of Epping, for
specimens of this plant ; the effect of cultivation has not, in this
instance, been ascertained.
All the fronds and pinnæ represented above would be placed
by Sir J . E. Smith in his species Aspidium lobatum. The pinnæ
à, e, a n d / are carefully copied from central pinnæ of three fronds,
so named in the Smithian Herbarium, and fronds e a n d / a r e
drawn from living fronds, which precisely agree with the dried
ones, from which the pinnæ marked with the same letters are
copied ; ^ is a pinna from a frond less divided than / and li a
seedling frond, found in company with the fronds e and / ; a pinna
is detached to show more clearly its spiny appearance. Smith
describes lobatum as having the fronds narrower, and the pinnæ
shorter, than aculeatum. “ The pinnæ are also more crowded,
especially at the base, where the foremost pinnula of each lowermost
pair lies close to the midrib, and is much larger than any
of the others.”
The colom- of this variety is a brighter lighter green than
angulare, and the upper surface much more glabrous ; hut these,
as well as the characters pointed out by Sir J. E. Smith, gradually
disappear with cultivation, and in a few years are wholly
obliterated.
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