840 



candolle, Sadler, Smith, Hooker, Dietrich, Babington, and many 

 others, appear to take no notice of it. It seems highly probably that 

 the fern did exist formerly, and scarcely probable that it has become 

 extinct : it will be recollected also that our two fragrant ferns, Las- 

 trffia rigida and L. Oreopteris, are absent from those works in which 

 P.fragrans is described, so that it may possibly be one of these. I 

 have endeavoured to collect all the evidence within my reach, as to 

 the claims of rigida or Oreopteris to the title of fragrans ; and before 

 immolating a well-established name on the altar of priority, I shall 

 feel extremely obliged to any botanist who can give me information 

 as to the present existence of the Linnean Polypodium fragrans. Id. 



417. On assisting Nature in the dissemination of Plants. Although 

 I concur in Dr. Bromfield's observation that this practice is " highly 

 reprehensible " (Phytol. 806), and admit such to be the rule, yet I 

 cannot help pleading somewhat earnestly for what I consider the ex- 

 ception. The rule appears to me to bear on all those cases in which 

 the act is committed for purposes of deception, and the exception on 

 those cases in which exotic plants are avowedly introduced to beau- 

 tify our woods and wilds. I have, I believe, succeeded in establish- 

 ing three beautiful North-American ferns — Sitolobium pubescens, 

 Onoclea sensibilis and Cystopteris bulbifera, and I think he were a 

 slender botanist who fell into the error of supposing them natives of 

 Britain. — Id. December, 1843. 



418. Note on Oxalis corniculata. As Devonshire is, I believe, con- 

 sidered the strong hold for Oxalis corniculata, as an English plant, 

 the following notice of it may not be quite devoid of interest to your 

 readers. Though I have never found it truly wild, that is, in such 

 places as its more elegant congener loves to inhabit, yet in several si- 

 tuations where ground has been recently ploughed or dug up, it has 

 made its appearance. Here (Lympstone) it has sprung up spontane- 

 ously in a garden where it was unknown before the spade brought the 

 seeds to the surface ; this also happened in a recently ploughed field 

 adjoining: and in the rich earth procured for a melon-bed, it grows 

 most luxuriantly, in fact it is a troublesome weed; this I have also 

 known to occur in a garden at Teignmouth. That the seeds of plants 

 may lie dormant for a long time, and yet, when some accidental cir- 

 cumstance favours their growth, may burst their covering and appear 

 where we should least expect them, is well known, and has been be- 

 fore proved in the pages of ' The Phytologist ; ' but the fact of these 

 seeds being there to germinate, proves one of these two things, — that 

 the plant in question was either formerly much cultivated in South 

 Devon, and so natuialized, or that it is one of the indigenous products 



