430 Bibliographical Notices. 



teration of the name of which from Aspidium we fully concur, pre- 

 sent considerable difficulty, and it will be found that Mr. Newman 

 has totally altered his views concerning them, distinguishing three 

 species (spinosa, multiflora and recurva) where he only allowed one 

 (dilatata) in his former work. He deserves very great credit for 

 acuteness in detecting characters by which these three plants are 

 distinguishable, and which, as far as our limited observation extends, 

 appear to be permanent. We refer to the form of the scales clothing 

 the lower part of the stem, by attending to which, as figured at page 

 214 of Mr. Newman's work, it appears almost certain that perfect 

 individuals of the plants may always be distinguished. The subject 

 of their nomenclature presents far greater difficulty. L. spinosa 

 (Newm.) is considered by our author as different from Asp. spinulo- 

 sum (Swartz), and it is singular and unfortunate that authentic spe- 

 cimens from that author, both of this and also of A. dilatatum, should 

 be wanting in England. We possess two specimens of a fern from 

 different parts of Germany and from different botanists, and also an 

 imperfect one from the Vosges mountains in France, named A. spi- 

 nulosum (Sw.), which are certainly the L. spinosa (Newm.), but, as 

 most authors state that the true plant of Swartz has stalked glands 

 upon the edge of its indusium, it is probable that they are wrongly 

 named, and that Roth's Polys, spinosum is the oldest certain name for 

 this species. The same difficulty attends the L. multiflora (Newm.), 

 which appears certainly to be the plant of Roth, but scarcely deter- 

 minable in other respects. We possess it under the name of Asp. 

 dilatatum (Sw.) in Durieu's Asturian Collection (no. 153), but have 

 not seen German specimens, and the absence of the requisite mate- 

 rials prevents us from forming an opinion concerning its identity with 

 the Polys, dilatatum (Hoffm.), or the relative claims of Hoffmann and 

 Roth as its first describers. The third plant to which we have re- 

 ferred, the L. recurva (Newm.), is, we now think, a good species. We 

 possess Scottish specimens from Tobermory in the Isle of Mull, thus 

 proving it to exist in that country as well as in England and Ireland, but 

 did not observe it during a recent tour in the south-west of Scotland. 

 Agreeing with our author in considering it as a species, we have to 

 complain greatly of its name. A worse could not have been selected, 

 as it conveys a totally wrong idea of the character of the frond, the 

 whole and every part of which is more or less incurved (the edges 

 turning upwards), never recurved or turned downwards ; Mr. Babing- 

 ton's manuscript name of concavum (under which denomination many 

 specimens have been distributed by him) conveys a far better idea of 

 the plant. There is great reason to hope that the name of dumetorum 

 may be retained for this plant, although the specimens preserved in 

 Smith's herbarium under that denomination do not agree with it. It 

 is nevertheless the opinion, we believe, of our older botanists, who 

 were well acquainted with Smith's plants, that the present species 

 was included by him under his A. dumetorum ; should not this be the 

 case, we have Mr. Newman's own admission that it is the A. dume- 

 torum of Mackay, and as Smith's name would drop, that becomes the 



