712 



for the express purpose of endeavouring to obtain a sight of a plant; 

 the identity of which had given rise to much difference of opinion 

 among several of our most distinguished botanists, although I was en- 

 tirely ignorant of the precise locality said to afford the little rarity. 

 Numerous were my enquiries, and long and wearying my researches 

 about "old walls;" and after hours of exertion I well nigh feared that 

 my excursion would prove fruitless, when I was fortunately directed to 

 an individual in the neighbourhood who knew the station well, and 

 had recollection of the visits of metropolitan botanists in search of the 

 plant, but who himself doubted its existence there at that time. How- 

 ever, on my proceeding thither by his direction, judge my great de- 

 light at beholding, without much trouble in searching for them, from 

 tliirty to forty specimens, some beautifully fruited, and all in a thriv- 

 ing state. Several others, I dare say, might have been detected on a 

 more minute inspection. I contented myself with bringing away three 

 or four plants only, one of which E have preserved in my herbarium, 

 leaving the rest to repay the pains-taking of such others of the lovers 

 of our ferns as might chance to bend their steps that way. Since the 

 date above alluded to, I learn from a friend that the wall has again 

 been repaired and beautified, and the plant apparently " destroyed " 

 a second time ; so that it may not perhaps just now be met with, al- 

 though so well established does it seem to have been in that famed 

 spot, and such the known tenacity of its existence, that we may well 

 suppose it far from impossible that some future patient investigator 

 may yet have the pleasure of recording its re-appearance at a remote 

 day. My recollection of the circumstance of finding this fern has 

 been refreshed by reading Mr. Newman's charming little note of his 

 visit to Ham-bridge, in search of Asplenium viride, as recorded in the 

 August number, (Phytol. 671). That gentleman, however, does not 

 tell us he supposes that that plant, being alien to the entire Worces- 

 tershire district, is "probably only an escape from a garden," although 

 in his elegant ' History of British Ferns ' he mentions the like as his 

 belief respecting the somewhat parallel case of the Cystopteris at 

 Lay ton. Are the plants published under the names of C. regia and 

 C. alpina in the Lancashire fem-list (Phytol. 477) identical with the 

 Layton plant ? — Edward Edwards ; Bexley Heath, Kent, August 

 4, 1843. 



352. Cotyledon lutea. Among several miscellaneous matters of 

 botanical prints and tracts picked up at a sale some years ago, some 

 part at least of which, I was told, had formerly been in the possession 

 of the late Dr. Dyer, there occurred an odd number of the original 



