240 LASTREA DILATATA AND ITS VARIETIES. [AugUSt, 



LEPiDOTA, a very remarkable form of doubtful origin^ having 

 short broadly-ovate quadripinnate fronds, the stipes and ramifica- 

 tions of which are so completely clothed with contorted whole- 

 coloured rusty scales as to give them a scurfy character. 



These all are abundantly distinct for the purposes of the culti- 

 vator, having marked individuality as to size, form, habit, and 

 aspect; but independently of these, and of such as can be asso- 

 ciated with them, this common Fern yields more than a quarter 

 of a century of distinct recognizable forms, some of which have 

 been only very recently found. There is a group of minimums ; 

 several interrupted laciniated and crested forms ; and others of 

 vigorous habit and gigantic stature, sometimes tall-fronded with 

 a narrowish outline, sometimes thick-fronded with a bulky 

 aspect and almost leathery texture, sometimes broad-fronded 

 and remarkable chiefly for the expansion of their surface. 



During the past year considerable additions have been made to 

 the previously-known British varieties. The smallest of these 

 novelties which has ccme to our knowledge is uncinella, a 

 Somerset variety, having the lamina of its fronds rather shortly 

 ovate, and four to five inches long. It is bipinnate or nearly tri- 

 pinnate, the pinnules rather peculiarly decurrento-confluent, and 

 their teeth rather large for so small a plant, with a marked ten- 

 dency in the teeth themselves or the lobes which they terminate 

 to become incurved. 



Another from the West of Scotland, which we propose to call 

 CONCINNA, has a lamina of about nine inches on a six-inch stipes, 

 and is somewhat oblong-ovate in outline, tripinnate with the parts 

 small, the pinnules stalked, subfalcate, and acute, cut into small 

 linear-oblong lobes, which have a few sharp teeth, most evident 

 at their tips, the anterior basal lobes being most prominent; 

 sori small. It is very neat and pretty. 



That we call lepida, from the confines of Yorkshire and Lan- 

 cashire, is a rather larger but slender form, with more distant 

 pinnse and pinnules, the latter more obtuse, and with the lobes, 

 which are oblong and sharply-toothed, more widely separated ; 

 the fronds, including the stipes, are upwards of a foot and a half 

 long. 



Then comes Hankeyan.^, a Cumberland plant, also remark- 

 ably slender and elegant, and with the pinnse and pinnules pecu- 

 liarly distant. In this the pinnules are long and narrow, the 



