A S P L E N I U M lanceolatum.
Lanceolate Spleen-wort.
CR r P TO GAMIA Filiccs.
Gen. Char. Fru&if. in fcattered lines. Involucrum
originating laterally from a vein, and burfting
inwardly.
S pec. Char. Frond lanceolate, alternately doubly
pinnated; leaflets obovate, deeply and Iharply
crenated.
S yn. Afplenium lanceolatum. Hudf. FI. An. 454,
With. B o t.J rr. v. 3. 54.
HXP HIS fern, which feems to have been hitherto but very
little known, was difcovered by Mr. T. F. Forfter jun. on the
Great Rocks at Tunbridge Wells. Specimens of it gathered
by the celebrated circumnavigators of the fame name in the
Ifland of Fayal, one of the Azores, are preferved in Sir
J. Banks’s herbarium. There appears to be no doubt of its
being Mr. Hudfon’s A. lanceolatum, but we dare not adopt his
uncertain fynonym of Ray ; for it does not feem probable that
the botanifts of that day, inattentive to the fructification of
ferns, would have judged the plant before us to be by any means
allied to A. Adiantum-nigrum. Neither can we affent to its
being A. Trichomanes-ramofum of Linnseus. For although no
fpecies fo.marked is in his herbarium, and therefore it cannot
pofitively be determined, it appears extremely probable he
meant no other than A. viride of Hudfon, which has fome-
times a divided Item; moreover our plant is in the Linnsean
herbarium, in one place palled by M. de Sauvages to Polypodium
regium} and in another unnamed, and laid loofe into the
genus Polypodium, to which (having never feen it but in an
advanced ftate of fructification) Linnseus would doubtlefs have
referred it.
The root is crowned with tufts of long narrow black fcales.
Fronds in fize and habit fomewhat like Pol. fragile, their general
outline lanceolate, their colour bright green, which is
but little changed by drying. Stalk fmooth, black below,
green upwards. Pinnse lanceolate, pinnated in their lower
part, lobed above; pinnulae and lobes obovate, veiny, fharply
crenate or toothed. Fructification in lines, burfting towards
their neareft nerve, but fometimes very fhort, and in an advanced
ftate forming roundifh as well as oblong patches of
capfules.