FERNS. 213 
eleven different places. Further eastward it becomes more scarce, 
and the patches are further apart: but it grows in several spots 
between Jaonnet and Icart. Between Saints Bay and Moulin Huet 
it occurs sparingly in one place, and again more plentifully on the 
cliff overlooking Petit Port. West of Petit Bot Bay I have only 
been able to discover one station for the plant all along the south 
coast, viz., a little beyond the old Sommeilleuse Watchhouse, where 
it is by no means plentiful. In many of the other stations the 
plants grow thickly, but the patches are often small. The fronds 
are generally developed by the beginning of November : the fruit is 
mature in January or February: and the whole plant disappears in 
April. In this respect it differs altogether from O. ambiguum, which. 
fruits at the end of May or beginning of June, and lasts till mid- 
summer. O. /usttanicum was discovered by George Wolsey, an acute 
Guernsey botanist, who recorded in the Phy/ologist for 1854 (p. 80). 
that this little fern grew ‘amid short and very level herbage on the 
summit of rocks not far from Petit Bot Bay; it grows in company, 
with Zrichonema Columnae and Scilla autumnalts, and on the 17th 
of January was in full fruit.’ The Small Adder’s Tongue is not 
found wild elsewhere in the Channel Islands (although several 
attempts have been made to introduce it in Jersey), nor does it 
occur nearer to Guernsey than the western shores of the Department 
of Cétes du Nord, in Brittany. 
(In order to prevent future error, it may be well to mention that 
some twenty years ago an enthusiastic fern botanist, residing in 
Guernsey, announced in print that. ‘ wishing to increase the number 
of our wild plants,’ he had repeatedly ‘planted out’ roots of 
Cystopteris fragilis and Hymenophyllum tunbridgense, but had ‘not. 
met with much encouragement, never having seen a plant the third 
season.’ Should either of these species ever be found in this island, | 
it must be understood that it has no claim at all to be considered 
indigenous.) 
