2776
ASPIDIUM angulare.
Angular-leaved Shield-fern.
CRYPTOGAMIA Filices.
Gen. Char. Clusters of fructification roundish,
scattered. Involucre orbicular, fixed by the
centre, or orbiculari-reniform, and fixed at the
sinus.
Spec. Char. Frond doubly pinnate; leaflets ovate,
bluntish, stalked, fringed with bristly serratures,
each leaflet with a lateral lobe at the base; the
lowermost elongated, partly pinnatifid. Stalk
scaly. Ribs all shaggy. Cover orbicular, um-
bilicated.— Smith.
Syn. Aspidium angulare. Willd. Sp. P l.v . 5.257.
Sm. Engl. FI. v. 4.291. Hook. Brit. FI. ed. 2.
441.
A. aculeatum j3. Smith, FI. Brit. 1122.
A. aculeatum var. 2. Dr. Johnston, FI. of Berwick,
v. 2. 12. pi. 3. f . 2.
Polypodium n. 1712 y. Hall. Hist. v. 3. 16.
Filix mas aculeata nostras, alis expansis, muscosa
lanugine aspersa. Pluk. Almag. 151. Phyt.
t. 180./. 1. |
T h i s Fern has often been looked upon as a variety
either of A. lobatum or A. aculeatum, two species which
have been confounded, or mistaken for each other. Kitaibel
(in Willd. Sp. PI. loc. cit.) appears first to have raised it to
the rank of a species. Smith in the English Flora has admitted
it to that distinction ; and Dr. Hooker, rather than
unite the three, has followed the same course; which appears
the more proper because each species has its appropriate
varieties.
Sir James Smith says, “ Having seen no specimen of