90 



claim, but was glad of it still, as establishing the plant's true nativity. But now for 

 the catastrophe : when I revisited the Glen last year for the pleasure, chiefly, of see- 

 ing this fern, I found my friends had loved it to death ; — it was gone ! — gone so com- 

 pletely that I thought I had mistaken the cave, and looked about for some other ; but 

 when I came back to look at least at the spot where I had seen it grow, I discovered 

 a morsel of a frond yet clinging on : this I carefully carried home, and planted under 

 a closed glass, where it is now growing and spreading most vigorously, but in the Isle 

 of Man I fear it grows no more. I have one or two notices yet to offer on the plants 

 which are found, and of some which are not found, in the Isle of Man : but must for 

 the present postpone them. — F. F. Clark ; HartsMll, near Newcastle, Staffordshire, 

 Augtist 21, 1841. 



53. Hymenophyllum Wilsoni has been found here this summer, on the Old Man, 

 where it grows on wet rocks, hidden from sight by the luxuriant growth of Crypto- 

 gramma crispa. In many such situations it is found, but not in great abundance. In 

 one other situation we have found it at a comparatively low elevation, on a large moss- 

 covered stone, standing in, but not overflowed by, a mountain stream. — M. Beever ; 

 Coniston, near Ambleside, Sept. 20, 1841. 



54. Lycopodium Selaginoides. In the course of the summer I have found Lycopodi- 

 um Selaginoides in almost all our boggy ground, generally growing in Sphagnum. — Id. 



55. Lycopodium clavutum. One plant only grows in a field near the lake, the sur- 

 face of which is peat and below it gravel. The part in which this plant grows has had 

 the grass removed, and appears to have been burned. It was observed about two 

 months since : there has been no appearance of fructification. The field, which is a 

 large one, has been well looked over, bnt no other plant has been found. — Id, 



56. Lastrcea rigida. I have much pleasure in giving you an opportunity to record 

 in the pages of your interesting periodical a Westmoreland habitat of Lastrsea rigida, 

 whence I supplied myself for the first time on the 15th of July, 1840. I believe the 

 station had been known to a gentleman resident in the neighbourhood for many years, 

 but he kept his secret close, lest the exterminating searcher should remove all traces 

 of his valuable discovery. My knowledge of the fern arose from Miss Beever, who, in 

 1839, sent a few fronds for my opinion, slating her belief that they were Lastraea rigi- 

 da, which belief Mr. Francis, to whom specimens had also been sent, fully confirmed. 

 The fern grows sparingly on the side of a road leading from Morecambe Bay to 

 Arnside, on the very confines of Westmoreland, and in very great abundance on the 

 southern face of Arnside Knot, a limestone hill which rises northward from that road. 

 Phcenix-like, it springs from the ashes of its parent, without any apparent access to 

 nourishment but what it may receive from ihe decayed fronds of the preceding year, 

 by which it is surrounded. Its tufts are very dense, each consisting of many hundred 

 fronds, so that T cannot entertain the least fear ihat it should ever be eradicated. I 

 may remark that, from its less elevated site than near Settle, hitherto the chief source, 

 through Mr. Tatham, of supply to the botanical world, its fructification is more often 

 perfected, and the character of the plant is more fully developed, in the Westmoreland 

 than in the Yorkshire habitat. Nor can I avoid noticing how completely the Arnside 

 plant stamps the correctness of the figure given in Mr. Newman's elegant and valua- 

 ble History of Ferns. This may have been noticed by those who have received speci- 

 mens from the Botanical Societies of either London or Edinburgh, to both which I 

 sent several the past year and furnish more the present one. — Samuel Simpson; Lan- 

 caster, September 29, 1841. 



