568 



plants of Britaiu. It will at once be observed that in combining 

 orders into alliances, the author has totally changed the consecutive 

 series usually adhered to, more or less closely, by the botanists of this 

 country. Orders are thus grouped together which have usually been 

 placed far apart. And on the other hand, several equally wide dis- 

 junctions have been deemed necessary or expedient. But the changes 

 of genera from one order to another are by no means numerous in pro- 

 portion : in several instances, such changes in the place of genera 

 occur with those of anomalous or peculiar structural disposition of 

 organs, or in which certain organs are reduced in number or wholly 

 absent. But our immediate object is that of showing what is the new 

 arrangement, not that of criticism upon its details ; and we therefore 

 close the abstract without further remark. 



C. 



Notes on the LastrcBa foenesecii as a species including both forms oj 

 Nephrodimn fcenesecii (Lowe), and Aspidiuni dilatatum, var. 

 recurvum, (BreeJ. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 



When two persons who give their attention to the same facts do 

 yet deduce conflicting opinions therefrom, it may fairly be assumed 

 that some third party must be appealed to for judgment between them. 

 To a certain extent, I find Mr. Newman and myself thus in conflict 

 respecting the specific identity of (the formerly supposed two) ferns 

 above named. The opinions of Mr. Newman are given in a recent 

 number of this periodical (Phytol. ii. 509) ; and in his paper this gen- 

 tleman there mentions that I had requested his attention to the sub- 

 ject. In thus making mention of me, he was writing only with refe- 

 rence to one point, in which our views concurred, and therefore he 

 made no allusion to more essential points of non-concurrence. But 

 as in some respects we have got to opposite conclusions, from inspec- 

 tion of the same specimens, I feel desirous to place before the same 

 body of readers that which 1 deem to be a necessary qualification of 

 Mr. Newman's views. 



In order to render the points intelligible, it may be well to first 

 mention briefly some items of the history of the (so considered) spe- 

 cies and their names. In the fourth volume of the * Magazine of 

 Natural History,' published in 1831, the Rev. Mr. Bree figured a fern 

 under the name of "Aspidiuni dilatatum, xar. recurvmnJ'^ Though 

 he thus named the fern only as a variety, yet in a foot-note he ex- 



