72 



Note on Lastrea uUgiiiosa. By Mr. Joseph Bray. 



As you have expressed a wish to receive communications respect- 

 ing Lastrea uliginosa, I beg to offer the following statement of facts 

 to the notice of the readers of the ' Phytologist,' leaving them to draw 

 what conclusions they may think proper from them. 



In September last I saw, for the first time, a plant of Lastrea uligi- 

 nosa. Shortly afterwards a gentleman showed me a plant which he 

 had procured from a nursery, under the name of Aspidium spinulo- 

 sum. This plant I immediately recognized as being identical with 

 the one before mentioned. Being anxious to possess L. uliginosa, I 

 went to the nursery, and out of an extensive collection of British 

 ferns I was, with the greatest ease, enabled to select four plants of it, 

 which were mixed with cristata and spinosa. These plants I showed 

 to Mr. Lloyd, and he said that they were quite correct : he gave me 

 the following account as to how they came into the possession of the 

 party from whom T procured them : — He informed me that when he 

 brought Lastrea cristata from Nottinghamshire, he supplied the same 

 party with living plants, and that shortly afterwards he received a 

 communication that some of them were not correct, in consequence 

 of which he sent others to the number complained of, but neglected 

 or did not think it worth the trouble to withdraw the first plants sup- 

 plied. His own plants, being in a north border, had not then 

 expanded their fronds, whilst these, being potted and protected, were 

 much earlier, but as he did not examine them, and had no idea that 

 they were anything more than Lastrea spinosa, he left them. I do 

 not profess to be a scientific botanist, and therefore am not competent 

 to give an opinion whether it is a species or a variety, but I beg to 

 observe that I can, by its habit, distinguish a well-developed plant of 

 it from either L. cristata or L. spinosa, but certainly with much 

 greater ease from the latter than from the former. 



Joseph Bray. 

 February, 1851. 



Notice of the ' Botanical Gazette,^ No. 26, February, 185L 



This number contains two original papers, intituled as below. 

 ' On Euphorbia stricta and platyphylla ;' by Fenton J. A. Hort. 

 * Remarks on some of the British Carices ;' by John M'Laren. 



