£ [ 1562 ]
ASPIDIUM aculeatum,
Common Prickly Sliield-fern.
CRYPTOGAMIA Filices.
Gen, Char. Fructifications scattered, in roundish
dots, not marginal. Involucrum umbilicated,
bursting almost all round.
Spec. Char. Frond bipinnate; leaflets ovate, somewhat
crescent-shaped, fringed with spines, hairy
beneath. Common stalks scaly.
Syn. Aspidium aculeatum. Sm. FI. Brit. 1122.
Polypodium aculeatum. Linn. Sp. PL 1552. Huds.
459. With. 777. Hull. 239. Relh. 412. Sihth.
271. Abbot. 227. Bolt. Fil. 48. t. 26. Mill,
Illustr. t. 101.
Filix mas non ramosa, pinnulis latis auriculatis spinosis.
Raii Syn. 121. n. 2 ; also n. 4 and 5,
F rEQUENT in shady stony places, and often in dry hedge
bottoms, bearing seed in the summer and autumn.
Root perennial, tufted, large. Fronds numerous, large and
handsome, of a dark and blueish green, paler beneath, lanceolate,
acute, elegantly and closely bipinnate; their general
and partial stalks remarkably scaly. Leaflets mostly alternate,
ovate, a little curved into a crescent-shape, sharply serrated,
each tooth tipped with a spine: all the leaflets are more or
less lobed or dilated at their upper edge near the base, and
sometimes the lowermost are pinnatifid. Spots of seeds
scattered over the disk, their membranous coverings quite circular,
attached by the centre, perfectly entire, not, as in
most of the genus, cloven on one side.
The size of the plant is much diminished when it meets
with a very dry or barren soil, in which case it approaches
Aspidium Lonchitis in habit, but is a very distinct species.
See t. J97.