38 Trichomanes radicaiis in Arran. [sess. li. 



and told Douglas to look for himself. He did so, and seeing 

 nothing more than I did, broke out into language more 

 forcible than elegant regarding the Glasgow gentlemen, who, 

 he said, must have gone back after he left them, and cleaned 

 out the hole. 



In my despair I took off my coat, rolled up my shirt 

 sleeves, and with my hand scraped the slimy mud out of the 

 bottom of the crevice and from the sides, in the hope of find- 

 ing a fragment of root, or stem rather, which might have 

 been left behmd. My " happy thought " was rewarded by 

 my finding a fragment of a frond with an inch or two of 

 rhizome, which I took away with me, wrapped in moss, and 

 planted on my return to Edinburgh ; — not exactly on my 

 return either, for circumstances prevented my having it 

 planted for about two months after the day I found it. All 

 this time it lay wrapped up in moss in a hamper containing 

 other fern roots I had brought from Arran. 



I scarcely expected it would survive this treatment ; but, 

 notwithstanding, when planted in a flat pan under a bell 

 glass in an attid room at our house in Eton Terrace, Edinburgh, 

 it soon commenced to gTOW, and continues to grow to this day. 

 After several fronds had developed and the plant was fairly 

 established, I cut off the original small frond which I had 

 found in the mud scraped out of the rocky crevice, dried it, 

 and have it now in my herbarium. 



1 do not know whether this discovery of T. radicans 

 has ever been noted in any Flora or Fern book, except 

 " Babbington " ; certainly I have never seen it noticed. On 

 the contrary, I have more than once heard doubts expressed 

 as to the T. radicans having ever been found by the postman 

 at all. 



What I liave stated will prcjvc tliat the fern was 

 actually found at the time and in the place I have described, 

 though I am not at all surprised that it has never been found 

 there since. 



