NOTES ON BRITISH FERNS. 



243 



limestone rocks, at an elevation 1550 feet above the sea, 1050 

 above the town of Settle : in company with it are found As- 

 plenium viride and Polystichum Lonchitis, the latter spar- 

 ingly. Mr. Tatham observes, " the representation ofPoL Lon- 

 chitis at page 44 (of the ' British Ferns ') is excellent ; the 

 masses of thecce with us are generally confined to about a 

 third of the fi-ond, but I have some that are half covered." 

 I shall, perhaps, be pardoned, for citing this laudatory pas- 

 sage; my object is to show that Mr. Tatham considers the 

 Irish plant figured at p. 44, as identical with the Settle 

 plant. 



Note 3. AsPLENiuM Trichomanes of Authors. 



This fern is, generally speaking, constant in its form, and 

 rather remarkable for its uniformity of appearance. I have, 

 however, received a beautiful and very marked variety from Mr. 

 Samuel Gibson, of Hebden Bridge, near Halifax, in York- 

 shire : the pinn(B, instead of being nearly entire, as is usually 

 the case, are deeply pinnatifid, as represented in the accom- 

 panying figure, and the pinnul<B or lobes are irregularly den- 



Variety of Asplenium Trichomanes. 



tate. The specimens sent by Mr. Gibson are perfectly without 

 fructification, but I do not know whether this is to be consi- 

 dered a character of the variety, or incidental only to the 

 fi*onds I have received. The lower figure is a facsimile 

 representation of one fi-ond, as regards form and size, the 

 upper figure represents a portion of a frond, in which the 

 divisions are still more irregular. 



This beautiful variety appears to have been known to our 

 earliest botanists, two previous figures of it existing in their 

 works ; neither of them, however, represents the fi-onds quite 

 so deeply divided as in the present instance. One figure is 

 in Plukenet's ' Phytographia,' tab. 73, fig. 6, the plant being 

 described in that author's ' Almagestum Botanicum,' p. 9, as 

 " Adiantum maritimum, segmentis rotundioribus : " it is 



