The Blechnum Spicant, which may be taken as a type of the Lomarieæ, is a very ornamental fern, with its dark green, linear-lanceolate fronds, of two forms; the fertile ones erect, pectinate, pinnate, with distinct narrow linear and acute pinnæ, while the barren ones are smooth, spreading, and pinnatifid, with broad linear, blunt, approximate lobes. The rachis is generally smooth, and of a dark purple hue, its leafless portion being shaggy with membranaceous scales. The barren fronds lie on the ground in the winter, while the fertile ones are erect, bear fruit from May to October, and wither when they have shed their spores. In the fertile fronds the lateral veins are alternate, and extend obliquely upwards, about half way towards the margin of the lobe, when, by a sudden turn, each runs parallel to the mid-vein, and anastomoses with the one above it, thus forming an apparently longitudinal vein on which the sorus is placed, so as to form a line on each side of the mid-vein; this is covered with a continuous indusium like a hem, which opens on the interior side (fig. 65). In the barren fronds the veins do not anastomose at the margins of the lobe. This species is common in almost every part of Great Britain, and extends on the Continent from Swedish Lapland to the borders of the Mediterranean. The species of Lomaria are marked by having the fertile fronds contracted, so that the sorus is quite marginal; but there are many species of Blechnum in which the elongated sorus, placed parallel to the midrib, is quite distant from the margin, much more so than in Blechnum Spicant. [Illustration: Fig. 65. Blechnum Spicant.] [Illustration: Fig. 66. Pteris aquilina.]