CHAPTER 9 



THREE SPECIAL CASES OF FERN HYBRIDS: 

 SCOLOPENDRIUM HTBRIDUM, WOODSIA 

 AND POLTSriCHUM ILL TRIG UM 



As a supplement to the foregoing account of the British fern flora attention may profit- 

 ably be given to a few special cases of species hybrids of non-British origin which, 

 nevertheless, add appreciably to our knowledge of species or genera already considered. 



Scolopendrium hybridum Milde [ = Phyllitis hybrida (Milde) Christensen) (Fig. 145) is 



Fig. 145. Scolopendrium hybridum Milde. Natural size. a. From a dried leaf. b. From a living leaf 



of the next generation. Both grown in cultivation. 



Fig. 146. Scolopendrium hybridum WMc. Half natural size. From Milde's original 

 drawing after Luerssen in Rabenhorst's Kryptogamenjlora (1889). 



a somewhat problematical plant with a very restricted range. It is endemic to five small 

 islands in the Adriatic Sea near the Dalmatian coast known as the Quarnero Group, 

 and consisting of Lussino, Osiri, Arbe, Dohn and S. Gregorio. The first specimen known 

 to science (cf Fig. 146) was discovered on Lussino by Reichardt in 1862, who noticed 

 it growing in a wall among a dense population oi Ceterach qfficinarum. Reichardt's speci- 



142 



