41 



A. ff. cvistatitm Kilrushense, accepted as the finest wild 

 cristate Lady Fern yet discovered, constitutes another 

 ** fluke.'' It was found in Ireland, where on a derelict 

 absentee estate, a long drain overgrown with brambles 

 and other rank vegetation was yet deep enough to permit 

 one to struggle along beneath the overgrowth at the 

 cost of a few scratches and nettle stings. The sides of 

 the drain were covered with Blechum spicant, and while 

 examining these a half audible remark by a youngster 

 who accompanied us, led to the parting of the brambles, etc., 

 to hear what was said, and there on the outside, in the 

 very gap so made, was the " find," a small crushed plant, 

 probably by the youngster's feet, but finely tasselled through- 

 out. Lifted and cultivated for two years we regarded 

 it as a dwarf gem, but then it assumed full size and 

 character and yielded numerous true progeny and a 

 heavy grandiceps form in addition. 



L. dilatata cvistata was found under peculiar circum- 

 stances in the Hobby drive at Clovelly. Wife and self 

 were standing in the road watching a small steamer 

 coming in to the little pier far below us. The slope in 

 front of us was covered with L. dilatata, and almost 

 immediately I detected, about twenty feet down, a large 

 crested plant. The whole place bristled with warnings 

 to Fern raiders and the plant was a huge one, a rather 

 tantalizing case. What could be done ? Closer inspec- 

 tion showed not only that the plant was a thoroughbred, 

 but that it was covered with ripe spores. The riddle 

 was solved, a single pinna was picked off, and wrapped 

 in paper ; the spores were sown, and at the present moment 

 among several of its progeny, one plant is a huge bush, 

 twice the size of the unattainable one, but fully as 

 characteristic. 



B. s. concinniim Driiery, our first good find, a beautiful 

 narrow form, like strings of small scallop shells, only 

 betrayed its presence by a tiny tip projecting from a 

 bunch of normals in the crevice of a stone dyke in 



