NOTICES OF BOOKS. 28? 



fragilis^ regia^ and moniana {alpina of most authors). Plate XLVII. 

 Woodsia Ilvensis'^ and W. alpina {hyperhorea of most authors). These 

 respective figures are so extremely like each other as scarcely to justify 

 Mr. Moore's remark, "No species, one would think, need be more dis- 

 tinct than JF, alpina is from Woodsia Ilvensis.'^ Not a few able bota- 

 nists find it hard to distinguish them, and it is certain that the extreme 

 forms are not liere represented. Deprived of the copious chaffy scales, 

 or exhibiting them only as a faint blur in "nature-printing," the con- 

 figuration of the two species seems to be identical. Plate XLVIII. 

 TricJiomanes radicans. These are noble specimens, but apparently en- 

 tirely destitute of fructification, or if the samples, affording the speci- 

 mens impressed, possessed it, it is quite obsolete in the figures. 



P^rt XVII. Plate XLIX. Hymeuoplir/llum Tunhridgense and Hyme- 

 nophyllum unilaterale (Wilsoni, HooJc,). Here again we find nature- 



F 



printing at fault. Distinct as we believe these two species assuredly 

 to be, the figures by no means exhibit the diflerences. This is in part 

 due to the principal character being microscopic (the entire valves of 

 the involucre) ; in part also to a peculiar curvature of the apex and 

 pinnae, in the living plant, admirably described by Mr. Wilson, and as 

 admirably figured by Sowerby in E. Bot. Suppl. t. 2636, but lost in 

 the pressure and flattening of the specimens. 



Plate L. Osmu7ida regalis. Plate LI. Botrychimn Lunaria, Ophioglos- 

 mm vulgatuMy and O. Ltisitanicum ; which latter Mr. Moore observes 

 may "fairly be allowed to remain separate from 0. vulgatum'^ The 

 author takes no notice of its being already in the late (seventh) edition 

 of the 'British Flora/ considered a mere var. ^ of O. vulgatum, and 

 that not till after a careful examination of the numerous specimens in 

 the Hookerian Herbarium, where " we find all intermediate gradations 

 from the largest and broadest cordate or ovate sterile fronds to a nar- 

 row, linear-lanceolate form not half an inch long." Mr. Moore has 

 also carefully examined the same specimens and recorded many of the 

 • numerous localities, but comes to an opposite conclusion in regard to 



* Custom and want of consideration of the origin of this specific name ha^ per- 

 mitted its continuance, but rufidula (Sw. and WUld.) is infinitely to be preferred. 

 Linnccus caUed the plant Acrosticlium Ilvense, believing it to be a plant of Dale- 

 champ, his LoncJdtis aspera Ilvensu (Ilva, island of Elba 1). The geographical and 

 climatic distribution of plants was not much studied in Liniuxus s days, or his habitat, 

 given in the 'Species Plantarum,' "in Europe /«yu//Mm^ rupihiix, would have 

 thrown a doubt on the identity of the two plants. 



