70 NEW AND RARE PLANTS——LAWSON. 
grounds nearer than Yarmouth, in the south-western extremity of 
the Province, and, as an introduced plant is rare in Nova Scotia. 
Its occurrence at Blomidon, under circumstances which indicate 
it to be indigenous, is of special interest to botanists. I have 
appended a few notes on this plant. Campanula rotundifolia, 
the blue bell of Scotland, is also quite indigenous here, although 
it grows as an introduced plant, only near Twelve-mile House; 
Halifax county. 
The bank of debris that slopes from the top cliffs of Blomi- 
don to the shore, is covered in most places with a growth of 
birch and other common, chiefly hardwood, trees, beneath which, 
and especially near the top, in shelter of the cliff and huge 
masses of rock, there are scattered about magnificent clumps of 
ferns. Struthiopteris germanica, the ostrich plume fern, grows 
in great luxuriance; also Polystichum angulare var. Brauni, 
together with the more common Lady fern, Athyriwm filia 
femina, and the Lastrea dilata, in many puzzling forms, one of 
which, var., Blomidonensis, with remarkably broad deltoid fronds 
of great size, is strikingly different from all other forms of this 
species. 
Botrychium Virginicwm was also found, not plentiful by any 
means, but some of the specimens were very fine. Polypodiwm 
vulgare hung in great green mantles over the bare rocks, and in 
stony places tufts of Lastrea marginalis were everywhere to be 
seen. 
Cystopteris fragilis was found in many places on the lower 
part of the sloping bank where the rock appeared at the shore, 
but the specimens were larger and finer in the crevices of the 
upper cliff. The prevailing form was that described as variety 
McKayii, which differs greatly, in its distant, not approximate, 
pinne, and other characters, from all ordinary European forms, 
but is probably the most common form of the species in America. 
It is in fact so common here that American botanists not unna- 
turally look upon it as the normal state. Woodsia Ilvensis was 
also found extending up the face of the cliff. Polypodium 
Dryopteris and other more common ferns need not be specially 
noticed. 
