14 



of Sir G. Staunton, Bart., near Havent, in company with Dr. Salter 

 and Professor Meisner, of Bale, Mr. Scott, the very able and most 

 obliging gardener, showed us numerous plants of this species, which 

 he said invariably comes up abundantly in peat-mould, which he is 

 in the habit of obtaining at different times from Petersfield Heath. 

 As the natural stations for this Polypody are shady, damp places or 

 mountains, its occurrence on so open, level and marshy a locality as 

 Petersfield Heath is an anomaly, compelling us to hestitate before we 

 receive it into the catalogue of Hampshire ferns, even on the strength 

 of numberless undoubted living specimens. I have often traversed 

 that heath in all directions, and explored its botanical productions, 

 without seeing anything resembling the Oak-fern, which nevertheless 

 is not, I should say, unlikely to occur in the high woods near Peters- 

 field, on the wet sandstone rocks, where P. Phegopteris should also 

 be looked for, the two species having nearly the same geographical 

 distribution, and affecting very similar places of growth. 



Lastrea Thelypteris. In boggy meadows and thickets ; rare. In 

 various places in the Isle of Wight, mostly in West Medina or the 

 confines of the eastern hundred. In several meadows in the marsh at 

 Easton, Freshwater Gate, in great plenty, on deep bog-soil, composed, 

 as it appears to me, chiefly of comminuted shells, but not fructifying 

 freely, and where, Miss G. E. Kilderbee tells me, it is called Ground 

 Fern by the country people. In a large willow-bed between Comp- 

 ton and Dunsbury Farms, a little north-east of Compton Grange, Sept. 

 24, 1844. In the valley of the Medina. Abundant and very luxuri- 

 ant on the Wilderness, amongst a perfect jungle of low willows and 

 Sweet Gale, also between that place and Rookley, and found by my 

 friend R. Godman Kirkpatrick, Esq., Sept. 1840, tolerably plentiful 

 in a boggy meadow by Cridmore, very large and luxuriant, some of 

 the fronds being upwards of fifteen inches long, and in fine fructifica- 

 tion !! Less plentiful in East Medina. Boggy meadow a little above 

 Alverston Mill, rather sparingly. In very small quantity on a ditch- 

 bank between Merry Garden and Ninham (near Shanklin). On a 

 piece of boggy land under a high bank above Knighton Lower Mill, 

 opposite Knighton Farm, between that and Hartsash, the sterile fronds 

 rising May 6, 1845. Portsea Island, Mr. L. H. Jacob ! I am un- 

 acquainted with any other station than this for the Marsh Fern across 

 the Solent; stations for it probably exist the bogs of the forest dis- 

 tricts 



Lastrea Oreopteris. In elevated, boggy and heathy places ; ex- 

 tremely rare in the Isle of Wight. Found in extremely small quantity 

 (I think only a tuft or two) at Apse Castle, October, 1843, by Dr. T. 



