156 



PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



Botryehium Lunaria (Smith) ; var. laciniatum (Mei). 

 Ireland — Kilnasantan, Co. Dublin. 

 England : 

 N.B. — I have referred here, in doubt, the incised leaved form of the moon wort. 



BRITISH SPECIES REPRESENTED IN FOLLOWING : — 



UNREPRESENTED : — 



Dissectum and Sinuatum. — Adiantum, Eupteris, Polystichum, Hemestheum, 

 Gymnocarpium. Osmunda, Botryehium, Ophioglossum, Trichomanes, Hymeno- 

 phyllum, Pseudathyrium, Allosurus, Gymnogramma. 



Laciniatum and Truncatum. — Adiantum, Cystopteris, Pseudathyrium, Allo- 

 surus, Gymnogramma, Ctenopteris, Hymenophyllum, Tricbomanes, Ophioglossum. 



Mr. Andrews said that the specimens exhibited, and the forms illustrated, by Dr. 

 Kinahan exemplified the numerous varieties of the fronds, and their departures 

 from the original type that occurred even among the Ferns of this country. In 

 England some botanists had so multiplied these subforms that it was difficult to 

 arrange and to reconcile such alterations of species. Dr. Kinahan has proposed 

 a classification for all these forms (among which some are really beautiful) ; and as 

 he has so industriously shown the multitudinous forms of several of the genera of 

 the Ferns of this country, Mr. Andrews considered an arrangement of the kind 

 desirable, in order to place those departures from the original type into such divi- 

 sions as their several gradations seemed to authorize. It is shown that, when Ferns 

 exhibit extremes of monstrosity of growth, the venations become changed and con- 

 fused, the character of the frond greatly altered, and a barren state sometimes con- 

 sequent, which is seen in one of the forms this night exhibited, the Polypodium 

 cambricum. In some instances the absence of fructification is supplied by bulbillae, 

 and the development of young plants continued. In others, as in Asplenium or 

 Camptosorus rhizophyllum (walking Fern ) , a viviparous action of the apex takes 

 root, and produces young plants. In Adiantum capillus veneris, Dr. Ball pointed 

 out a singular vegetating principle, affecting the termination of the pinnules ; and 

 in Woodwardia radicans, young plants are produced from the backs of the fronds, 

 and extend their range of growth similar to the Asplenium rhizophyllum. It is 

 characteristic of these forms that most retain those deviations under cultivation. 

 In the phaenogamous plants such rules likewise occur, as are instanced in the 

 Saxifrages, that present such variations both in foliage and inflorescence, and 

 which they retain in garden culture. Some that have imperfect fructification, 

 bulbillae form in the axils of the branches, as in the case of Saxifraga leucanthe 

 mifolia, and which led Dr. Robert Brown to name an Artie species Saxifraga 

 foliolosa. 



Mr Andrews then exhibited specimens of Elymus Europzeus, of Linnaeus, 

 Hordeum Sylvaticum, of Hudson, which had been sent to him by Mr. Bain, of the 

 Botanic Gardens, Trinity College. Mr. Bain discovered this grass in the woods at 

 Mount Merrion, the seat of the Right Hon. Sydney Herbert, and he at once de- 

 tected it as new to the flora of the country. It grew in some abundance, and being 

 of no value as an agricultural grass, it is not likely to have been introduced. It is 



