DUBLIN NATUBAL HISTOEY SOCIETT. 187 



tend to say whether the one variety could by any culture produce a form 

 like the other. If it did, from what I have previously stated, it would 

 be likely that wo have not yet got the original starting form. With 

 regard to the second query, as to whether specimens exist about which 

 there is any uncertainty as to wliich form to refer them to, it can be 

 answered that most indubitably forms do exist in the Kew Herbaria which 

 do perplex a Hooker and a Bentham. With regard to the last query, 

 my attention was called by Mr. Bentham to a mass of Hymenophyllum, 

 which exhibited a mixed fructification (partly resembling H. WiUoni 

 and partly H. Tufibridgeme on the same fronds). This specimen, we be- 

 lieve, convinced him on this subject, and we incline to think ought so 

 unequivocally to settle this question as to render further allusion thereto 

 needless. These answers contain the reasons that induce me to believe, 

 with the author of the " Handbook to the British Flora," that E. Wil- 

 soni is but an entire valved form of H. Tunhridgense. Surely the de- 

 velopment of spare parenchyma into the form of a few hairs or teeth is 

 not enough, in the face of such proof — to cause scientific men stiU to 

 make* them distinct, because they find it a pleasing task to add to the 

 botanical interest of their country by so readily supporting this view. 



REMAEK8 ON THE BEITISH HYMENOPHYLLUM, ETC., BY W. H. HAKVEY, M. D., 

 r. E. AND L. 8., PEOFEflSOB OF BOTANY, UNIVEESITY OF DUBLIN. 



Professor Harvey made some remarks in support of Mr. Bentham's 

 views. He said : — 



On the first evening of the Hjmienophyllum discussion I made some 

 few remarks which seem not to have been clearly understood by some of 

 the Members present, and have been incorrectly reported in an "unau- 

 thorized statement" which subsequently appeared in a morning news- 

 paper. I wish, therefore, to be permitted, on the present evening, to 

 place on record my former statement, and also to explain my reasons 

 for illustrating what I had to say by bringing forward the case of Cera- 

 topteris and Parkeria. 



First, it will be in the recollection of the President that I com- 

 menced by saying that, so far as my own personal experience oiUymetio- 

 phyllum Tunhridgense and Wilsoni in Ireland went, I fully agreed with 

 the statements put forward by Mr. Andrews and Dr. Kinahan. I 

 acknowledged that in this country these two ferns were readily distin- 

 guishable by characters of frond and involucre, and that I had never met 

 ■Nvith puzzlingly intermediate conditions of either ; therefore, that, were 

 I to limit myself to British specimens, I should probably admit the two 

 species contended for. In doing so, I should be guided by the evidence 

 before me ; but the opinion thus formed, being based on evidence, con- 

 siderable, — but far from complete or conclusive, — would be liable to mo- 

 dification as soon as any good evidence on the opposite side should bo 

 brought forward. In this, as in all other similar cases, I should adopt 

 a species provisionally, not conclusively ; and should be prepared to 

 abandon it or uphold it, as the evidence might warrant. Having stated 



2d 



