146 



vations to L. recurva, there is a remark in Mr. Here's paper which I 

 would recommend to the especial notice of all in-door botanists, 

 before they pass judgment against this fern. He says (Phytol. iv. 97), 

 " But it is from an acquaintance with L. recurva in its natural locali- 

 ties that one feels satisfied that it is not a mere variety. It requires 

 no close examination to separate it from the numberless fronds of 

 multiflora in its neighbourhood : a single glance must reveal the 

 truth." It may not be unimportant to add, for the benefit of those 

 who form their notions of this fern from dried specimens only, that 

 one, and that perhaps the most obviously striking, character of the 

 plant is necessarily almost, if not entirely, obliterated in a u-ell-pres- 

 sed dried specimen. I allude, of course, to the peculiar curvature of 

 the pinnules, the crisped appearance of the whole frond, " somewhat 

 resembling parsley," as Mr. White truly expresses it (Phytol. iv. 109). 

 This gentleman, I trust, will excuse the freedom of the following re- 

 marks, and take them as they are meant, kindly and solely with a 

 . view to elicite truth. Judging from vv'hat Mr. White says in the 

 * Phytologist' for April, I infer that he has studied this fern in a wild 

 state principally, perhaps exclusively, in Sussex ; of which locality I 

 have myself had no experience. In this county, it should seem, 

 according to Mr. White, and 1 have no reason to dispute the accuracy 

 of his observation, that L. recurva grows principally in dry situations, 

 and consequently does not attain to so large a size as it does when 

 supplied with a greater degree of moisture. And this circumstance 

 will account for his saying, what as a general truth I am hardly pre- 

 pared to admit, viz., that " the fronds never attain more than a third 

 the size of those of multiflora, and are invariably less than those of 

 spinosa." Now according to my own experience of this fern, I 

 should say that, although it will, and sometimes does, grow in very 

 dry spots,* it is yet generally a moisture-loving species. Quite sure 

 I am, that in the neighbourhood of Penzance I used to find it plenti- 

 fully in a very moist spot in one of those little valleys with a purling 



* I have preserved a specimen of L. recurva, the entire plant, root and all, hearing 

 five separate fronds, of which the largest, in full fructification, measures from the 

 crown of the root to the apex just four inches and a half; scarcely so large as a good- 

 sized frond of Cystopteris fragilis! This diminutive specimen I gathered on a dry 

 hedge-bank in the neighbourhood of Penzance. Now, looking at this dried specimen 

 by itself, apart from others by help of which to interpret it, I might possibly be some- 

 what puzzled to know what species to refer it to ; but having gathered it myself, and 

 seen it in a living state, a " single glance " was enough ; and I have not the slightest 

 doubt of its being no other than L. recurva. 



