HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 11. 



the plants and ' yield to none in excellence.' The signature 

 on the plates is sometimes quaintly precise, thus of tab. 43 : — 

 " Etched on the Copper immediately from the Plant, Septem- 

 ber the 26, A.D., 1790. By J. Bolton at Stannary near 

 Halifax." The work appears to contain the first description 

 of Polypodium Robertianum, as a variety of P. Dryopteris and of 

 Woodsia hyperborea under the name of Acvostichum alpinum (tab. 

 42). Bolton was a correspondent of various British botanists 

 at this time, such as Edward Robson of Darlington, and James 

 Dickson the cryptogamist. Thus, in his concluding paragraph 

 he says — " Specimens of Polypodium rhceticum and Acros- 

 tichum thelypteris were sent me by my friend Dickson, author 

 of the Plantarum Cryptogamicarum Britannia." The latter plant 

 is the one figured on plate 43, and the following letter is of 

 interest as bearing upon it. It should be remembered in 

 connection with it that Bolton's Polypodium Phelyptevis in the 

 first volume (tab. 22) was in reality P. or Lastroea Oreopteris, 

 and that plate 43 in Vol. II. represents the true Lastrcea (or 

 Acvostichum) Thelypteris, as there named. 



The original letter, inserted in what is presumably Bolton's 

 presentation copy to Dickson,* is in the Free Library, Todmor- 

 den, and the Librarian has obligingly furnished me with a 

 copy for publication : — 



Stannary : near 

 Sir, Halx, Jan. 6th, 91. 



If you will call at ^Messrs. Whites Booksellers Fleet Street, you will 

 have a coppy of my present publication which I ordered my Binder to 

 enclose in his parcell : it is wrapped in a separate paper and directed to 

 you ; so you have nothing at all to pay. I hope you will accept it without 

 any kind of ceremony. 



I founcl myself under the necessity of differing from you in opinion 

 concerning the plant you Lent me under the name of Polypdm thelypteris, 

 it is undoubtedly an Acrostichum, and such I have called it. Your P. 

 oreopteris is the plant which by late Authors has been called P. thelypteris 

 of this their can be no doubt : but why or by whom Linnaeus's synonym of 

 Acrostichum Thelypteris come to be applied thereto I cannot discover ; 

 But I am sure no man who has propper conceptions of the extraordinary 

 penetration and accuracy of the Immortal Linnaeus can believe that he 

 would call the Polypm thelypteris an Acrostichum or the Acrostichum 

 thelypteris a polypody. 



I believe you will agree with me concerning the Acrostichum alpinum, 

 not doubting but you. have taken notice of the dissimilitude which obtains 

 between it and the Ilvense ; you know that I am an inveterate enemy to 

 the unnecessary multiplying of species ; yet no one is more happy than I 



*A MS. Index on a slip of paper fixed at the end of this copy is signed 

 "J.D." 



