  Consider a lipid membrane with a free exposed edge. The energy describing
this membrane is quadratic in the extrinsic curvature of its geometry; that
describing the edge is proportional to its length. In this note we determine
the boundary conditions satisfied by the equilibria of the membrane on this
edge, exploiting variational principles. The derivation is free of any
assumptions on the symmetry of the membrane geometry. With respect to earlier
work for axially symmetric configurations, we discover the existence of an
additional boundary condition which is identically satisfied in that limit. By
considering the balance of the forces operating at the edge, we provide a
physical interpretation for the boundary conditions. We end with a discussion
of the effect of the addition of a Gaussian rigidity term for the membrane.
