138 



taken) states further that Mr. Baxter, the then curator at 

 Oxford, wrote to him that the plant came from the Chelsea 

 Botanical Gardens. There would seem to be some 

 obscurity on this point, however, because it is stated that 

 "it was for some time thought that the plumosum was an 

 Irish form." Mr. Moore, of Chelsea, being referred to, 

 said that if the plumosum came from Chelsea it must be a 

 piece of the Horsfall plumosum, a crown of which had 

 been sent thither by Messrs. Stansfield subsequently to its 

 being exhibited for a certificate at South Kensington soon 

 after its discovery — i.e. probably about 1861. Col. Jones 

 goes on to remark very significantly : " It is strange, how- 

 ever, considering the very marked tendency, in the seed- 

 lings from the Oxford plant, to run in the kalothrix strain, 

 that no similar trace of this strain should ever have been 

 detected among the thousands of seedlings raised by 

 Messrs. Stansfield and others from the Yorkshire plant." 

 Strange indeed ! so much so that it is, to me, quite 

 incredible that the parent of kalothrix can have been the 

 Horsfall plumosum. 



What then of the tradition about an Irish form ? 

 Several plumosums have, I believe, been found in Ireland 

 — one I know by the late Mr. Tyerman — but from none of 

 them, so far as is known, has kalothrix ever been raised 

 apart from this Oxford plant. Apropos of this, another 

 fact which, though interesting, at first sight appears to 

 have no particular bearing upon the question, is recorded 

 by Col. Jones, to wit — " In the Sherardian herbarium, 

 Oxford Botanic Gardens, is to be seen a wild frond, 

 gathered many years since in the Mourne Mountains, 

 almost identical with kalothrix." Now the Sherardian 

 herbarium is the collection of dried plants made by Dr. 

 Sherard, who founded the botanical professorship at Oxford, 

 bequeathing by his will £"3,000 for that purpose. 



Sherard was born in 1659 ^^^ died in 1728, so that this 

 specimen frond of kalothrix is probably at least 200 years 

 old. 



