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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



MooKE, Thomas, F.L.S. : The Eerns of Qreat Britain and Ireland. 

 Edited hy John Lindley, Ph.D., F.R.S., etc. Imp. folio. Parts 

 VIII. and IX. Nature-printed by Henry Bradbury. London. 1855. 



Our frequent notice of the progress of this work is a proof of the 

 esteem in Avhich we hold it. The interest of the subjects here under 

 discussion (for few departments of Botany are more in general favour 

 than the Ferns), the peculiar art by which the plates are represented, 

 and the devoted zeal with which Mr. Moore performs his share of the 

 publication, cannot fail to place it in the first of the kind of the present 

 day ; and we should be sorry, if we have in any way misinterpreted a 

 passage in the descriptive pages of the last fasciculus (YII.)? i^ot to 

 take an early opportunity of correcting it, and this we shall do in Mr. 

 Moore's own words. It is in reference to our observations at p. 350 

 of the last (seventh) volume of our Journal : " In your last notice of 

 the Nature-printed Ferns, you have somewhat misapprehended a state- 

 ment I have made in describing Lastrea spinulosa. By a reference to 

 the passage preceding that which you have quoted (p. 351), it will be 

 seen that it was Z. cristata^ uliginosa^ and spinulosa^ to which I referred 

 as so closely merging into each other by means of transition-forms of 

 frond, that I had come to the conclusion that 'all three' were mere 

 variations from one specific type. You appear to have understood that - 

 L, cristata, spimilosa, and dilatata were meant, and very naturally 

 express surprise that, while holding this view, I should separate the 

 two former from the latter. This however was not my conclusion. I 

 look upon Z. dilatata — itself a very variable and extensive group of 

 forms — as distinct from the former three, although, as you well know, 

 the subject is not free from difficulty, nor perhaps from doubt. The 

 chief of these doubts and difficulties however appear to me to arise 

 from the fact that the specimens of these Ferns in herbaria from 

 foreign countries are generally detached fronds, or too often mere mu- 

 tilated fragments of fronds ; and I have little doubt that, if in the case 

 of these foreign examples one could see the entire plants, there would 

 be no great difficulty in referring them to one or the other of the two 

 groups 1 have indicated, as there is no great difficulty in referring those 

 British examples of which complete specimens are examined. I may 



