79 



veins of plumose varieties leads to the conclusion that a 



free venation is a sine quel non, since the extra foliose 



character peculiar to the section is entirely due to the 



lengthening of free veins beyond normal limits, carrying as 



it were tissues with them. A reticulate or netted venation 



with anastomosing veins could hardly permit of similar 



extension. As regards the origin of plumose varieties 



we are entirely in the dark. Phlehoditim aureum Mayii 



originated, as w^e have said, under culture, and indubitably 



from a chance spore derived from a normal plant ; the 



others named were all, we believe, found wild, but must, 



it is obvious, have originated in the same way, i.e. from a 



5pore from a normal plant, which was either subtly affected 



when it was shed, or produced a prothallus, whereon the 



formative or reproductive cells were affected in such a way 



that the resulting fern was barren and foliose by correlation. 



It is recorded with regard to Scol. v. cvispum, the plumose 



Hartstongue, that Col. Jones found no less than twenty-nine 



separate specimens in one locality, and most of them in one 



lane in S. Wales, and this would tend to prove that the 



spores of an otherwise normal plant in the vicinity were 



affected as above, as it is obvious that all were otherwise 



independent sports. 



C. T. D. 



CYSTOPTERIS FRAGILIS SEMPERVIRENS. 



In Mr. E. J. Lowe's "Our Native Ferns" this fern is 

 mentioned as foUow^s : "Said to have been found at 

 Tunbridge Wells and in Devonshire. A native of 

 Madeira, and perhaps a distinct species. Some obscurity 

 hangs over it as a British plant." In 1906, however, I 

 received fronds from a plant which was found wild in 

 Scotland, in Corrie Clanmor, by Mr. William Young, of 

 Kirkcaldy, and as these fronds had been gathered in a 

 green and healthy condition in the winter from a quite 

 cold frame, in which the ordinary C. fvagilis . had died 



