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form indeed, thoroughly constant. Ptevis aquilina coiigesfay 

 found we beheve in the Lake district, is a charmingly 

 congested or dense fronded form, which for garden culture 

 possesses, so far as our experience goes, the advantage that 

 the congestion appears to affect the rootstock as well and 

 prevents it from monopolizing the garden entirely, as does 

 P. aq. pevcvistata and gvandiceps and also f^lomevata, three 

 other very fine varieties. The first has even the pinnules 

 crested, and is extremely handsome, and it is from its 

 spores that a percentage of "grandiceps '' is always derived, 

 the latter itself being barren. " Grandiceps " consists of 

 bunch crests suspended on comparatively short stalks with 

 smaller ones at side divisions, hardly any flat leafy portion 

 appearing ; it only grows about 2 feet high, while its parent 

 is extra robust, and if permitted to do so travels far and 

 wide, ignoring gravel paths or even brick walls, and invading 

 the garden generally with a shoulder-high jungle of fronds. 

 P. aq. glomevata may be described as a Common Bracken 

 with a mania for tying itself up into knots ; frond tips and 

 side divisions thus forming dense balls, while the minor side 

 divisions or pinnules wrap themselves tightly round the 

 stalks. This, too, is a robust invader, and the finder in 

 the Lake District described the colony on a hill side as 

 hanging down it like great bunches of grapes, a curious 

 fact in connection with this being that he could never hit 

 upon the place afterwards. 



A magnificent variety of the hard leathery type, very 

 dense and crested throughout, was found by the writer near 

 Pitlochry, but under the most tantalizing conditions, since 

 there was only one large frond, springing from rocky soil 

 and quite barren of spores, so that nothing could be acquired 

 except the frond itself. In this connection Ptevis aquilina 

 is peculiar in being almost untransplantable, it roots very 

 deeply and has a long, travelling, brittle stolon, which 

 cannot be extracted so as to enable the plant to make a 

 fresh start. The only way to transplant, therefore, is in 

 the winter to dig up a solid mass of soil containing such 



