The ferns of Great Britain and their allies, the club-mosses, pepperworts, and horsetails / by Anne Pratt ; published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education, appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
- Anne Pratt
- Date:
- [1871]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The ferns of Great Britain and their allies, the club-mosses, pepperworts, and horsetails / by Anne Pratt ; published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education, appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![scaly, and the dark brown fibrous roots are very strong and tough. The stipes and rachis are sometimes smooth and yellow, or densely clothed with pale ])uri)le scales. A handsome variety, verv similar to the common form of the Male Fern, but larger, often attains the height of four, or even five feet. It is by some writers called Z. inc'isa. Its pinnules are longer and more pointed, and their edges more deeply cut, the lateral branches of veins more numerous, and the clusters extending over a larger part of the pinnule. A stunted variety, about a foot high, in which the })innulcs become rounded lobes, and the fructification is diminished so as to form a line onlv on each side of the mid-vein of the piunm, is called Z. abbrevidta. The former variety is not unfrecjuent; the latter is found rarely, in woods and on banks in Cumber- land and Yorkshire. A very singular form of this fern is sometimes seen, in which the points of the pinnae spread out into a kind of fringe, so that the toj) of the frond looks like a tassel. A similar change occurs also in the Lady Fern, but is unknown to any other of our British species. A remarkable variety termed Borreri was discovered bv Mr. Borrer, in Devonshire, and seems not uncommon. It has a narrow lanceolate frond of a golden yellow colour, and bright yellow scales on the rachis. 5. Z. Faenisecii (Triangular Prickly-toothed, or Re- curved Fern).—Frond cnnxd, triangular, twice pinnate; pinnules })innate, or deeply pinnatifid ; indusiuni jagged at the edge. This is a beautiful and well-marked fern, having its frond very minutely divided. Its peculiarity consists in having the margins of its segments all curled H](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28122306_0103.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
