This plant occurs in one sea cave near Aberdeen so on my way to watch Cove Rangers beat Forres Mechanics in a Highland League match, I went to look for it. The sea cave is cut-off by high tide and it was nearly high tide when we got there. Scrambling over wettish rocks I found the cave which has four different ferns in it just to make life complicated. There isn't very much of this plant, which looks quite like Cystoperis fragilis (Brittle Bladder-fern), except that the pinnae are crowded and overlap. The other distinguishing feature is supposed to be that the spores are minutely warted but in C. fragilis there is a spine. There weren't any spines on the spores that I could see but the absence of a characteristic can never be used as postive proof of identification. Stace is unconvinced by this separation of species and suggests that this plant represents a chance combination of characters rather than a different taxon.
When I first saw it many years ago that was my reaction - it's just a funny looking Brittle Bladder fern growing in the wrong place. But at present it is supposed to be a rare and different species from C. fragilis so who am I to argue?
Sea Cave south of Aberdeen, 20th August 2005
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Added on August 21st 2005