845 



over it a piece of litmus paper which has been partially redclened by 

 an acid. — Id. 



429. Note on Aspidium spinulosum. I feel obliged to your coiTe- 

 spondent Mr. Forster (Phytol. 814), for correcting an error which I 

 inadvertently fell into (Id. 774) in stating that " the application of the 

 specific name of spinulosiim to a British fern (first adopted, I believe, 

 by Smith and Sowerby in ' English Botany ') originated in error," — 

 a blunder this, on ray part, the more strange, as it is distinctly stated 

 in the letter-press of ' English Botany,' that " Dr. Withering first made 

 it known as a British plant." In my own defence, however, I must 

 observe, that it is not recorded in Withering's second edition, printed 

 in 1792, to which alone I had access. My principal object in the 

 remarks I made, was to warn botanists not to take up their notions 

 about Aspidium spinulosum from the figure and account in ' English 

 Botany,' where an error certainly is committed, Mr. Mackay having 

 avowed to me that the plant there represented turned out to be only a 

 young or starved specimen of A, dilatatum. I am quite aware that 

 Mr. Dickson " nowhere published A. spinulosum ; " but I know that 

 he was well acquainted with the fern, as well as with what I have 

 called recurvum, and that he maintained them to be distinct species, 

 and each of them distinct from dilatatum. For distinction's sake I 

 have been in the habit of calling this much-disputed species ^^ Dick- 

 soti's spinulosum," because at the period when I conversed with him 

 on the subject, he was the only botanist with whom I was personally 

 acquainted, who appeared to me to have an accurate knowledge of the 

 plant in question. — TV. T. Bree; Allesley Rectory, December 8, 1843. 



4-30. New locality for Saxifraga crenata^ Bab. C. C.Babington, in 

 his ' Manual of British Botany,' considers this plant a doubtful native 

 at Hezleden Gill ; but when he was here this autumn, and visited the 

 place, he was convinced of its being indigenous. C. C. Babingtonand 

 your readers in general will be glad to learn that since then the Rev. 

 John Howson has found the same plant at Lynn Gill, but not in such 

 profusion as at Hezleden Gill. Lynn Gill is about four and a half 

 miles from Hezleden Gill, and about thirteen miles from Settle ; the 

 plant is found on the north-east side of the valley, about twenty yards 

 above the waterfall; the high range of hills, part of the Penine chain 

 which passes through Yorkshire, separates the two locahties. — John 

 Tatham,jun.; Settle, 12th Mo. {December) 7, 1843. 



431. Note on Hieracium prenanthoides. C. C. Babington, when at 

 Settle, found one plant of Hieracium prenanthoides, since then I have 

 seen six others ; they are all on the east bank of the Ribble near the 



