104 transactions, natural history society of glasgo\». 



27th January, 1903. 



Mr. Peter Ewing, F.L.S., President, in the chair. 

 Mr. Alex. Murray, 153 Queen Street, and Mr. James Sommer- 

 ville, Jun., 1 Caledonian Terrace, Cambuslang, were elected 

 Ordinary Members. 



Mr. Alex. Somerville, B.Sc, F.L.^., exhibited the Soft 

 Prickly Shield Fern, Polystichum angulare, Presl., from Ayr- 

 shire, Renfrewshire (1861), Cumbrae (1863), Arran (1863), and 

 Kintyre, with specimens of P. aculeatum, Roth., and F. lonchitis. 

 Roth., for comparison. At the same time Mr. Somerville read 

 a paper, " On the genus Polystichum, Roth {Aspidium, Swartz), 

 in part, with special reference to P. angulare, Presl., and to 

 its distribution in Scotland." After giving some interesting 

 details regarding ferns in general, he described more particularly 

 the peculiarities of the Shield Ferns, and specially directed the 

 attention of the meeting to P. angulare, because of the fact 

 that it was a plant becoming rare, to such an extent that 

 many good Scottish botanists had never seen it growing. Mr. 

 Somerville went on to say — 



" I show specimens gathered forty years ago by Mr. P. Neill 

 Fraser, of this Society, on Great Cumbrae Island, where I fear 

 it is now quite extinct, and also from Lochranza, Arran, in 

 which island I am doubtful if it is now to be found. I also 

 show specimens obtained many years ago at Inverkip, Renfrew- 

 shire, where, and along the coast to Skelmorlie, it used to be 

 plentiful. Dr. Thomas Scott, F.L.S., records it from above 

 Greenock, and Mr. D. A. Boyd from Portincross, Ayrshire; 

 and Mr. John Smith, Kilwinning, also is acquainted with three 

 spots in Ayrshire where it occurs. I show a specimen obtained 

 by myself last year in the extreme south of Ayrshire. 



" Perhaps the most interesting of the sheets shown is that 

 of specimens gathered by me in the woods at Skipness, in the 

 Kintyre peninsula, in 1899. This record of the plant, with the 

 exception of one from Lochgilphead, noticed in Moore's Nature- 

 Printed Ferns, published forty-four years ago, and of which 

 there seems to have been no subsequent confirmation, is, ac- 

 cording to Professor Trail, the only record from Argyllshire, 

 or from any part of the West of Scotland north of Arran. 



