1859.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 189 



fifteen hundred. His eye beamed with intelligence ; his voice was musical 

 and most agreeable ; his delivery fluent, earnest, convincing ; his know- 

 ledge, though since far surpassed by a Jussieu, a Brown, and a De Can- 

 dolle, was at that period entirely unrivalled." 



What the London lecturers on botany at the present day may 

 think of the reviewer's judgment we do not know. The contrast 

 with Linnaeus is not favourable to the present occupiers of bo- 

 tanical chairs. In our humble opinion, the fact above quoted 

 proves the eminence of the botanical lecturer (professor) of Upsala 

 in the eighteenth century, but the inferiority of the learned pro- 

 fessors of the science in London need not hence be inferred. 

 Indeed from the number of botanical publications issuing almost 

 weekly from the press, it might be concluded that botany was 

 never in a more palmy condition. 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUEEIES. 



Blechnum alpinum. 



Gbaeries ahovit Bleclmum alpinum. See ' Phytologist ' for May, 1859, 

 p. 157. 



• 1st. Did the lady's collection include any other than Scottish Ferns? 

 There appears to have been a collection of Scottish Ferns made in 1856. 

 Were there no other Ferns there ? If there were no other Ferns in the 

 collections, Mr. WoUaston would not have thought that " there must be 

 some mistake, and that unknown to her the British and the other Ferns had 

 got mixed." 



2nd. How could the " telling the exact spot dispel all well-founded 

 doubts ? " No doubt the fair collector took up some Fern from the spot 

 afterwards described, but unless she had kept it under her eye, she might 

 in a few months have forgotten it, especially in a mixed collection and 

 where a gardener was employed. 



The gardener's ignorance of B. alpinum is rather a weak proof that the 

 original conjecture of Mr. WoUaston was not after all the correct one. 



It does not appear that Mr. WoUaston in person visited the spot, which 

 he very carefully conceals. It is not stated that he ascertained for him- 

 self whether or not B. alpinum really grows " on an old stone wall running 

 alongside a rushing mountain stream." 



He does more than this, — but this addition is not so satisfactory as his 

 own personal evidence would be, — he gives a letter from the fair discoverer, 

 who adduces her liusband as a voucher for her veracity. After aU, notwith- 

 standing her safe backer, the lady " cannot quite yet submit to thinking 

 tliat it cannot be, even tliougli you say it." 



Mr. WoUaston himself does not appear to have much confidence in the 



