1859.] IIYMENOPIIYLLUM. 217 



find that delicate speeies q\ioted by Ray and by Withering as 

 growing amongst pebbles at Cockbnsh, on the coast of Sussex ; 

 and when Me still further refer to that excellent work, ' Species 

 Filicum/ of Sir William Hooker, we again find such numerous 

 affinities and synonyms given of the views of different botanists, 

 at pages 95 and 147 and following, that completely perplex the 

 species H. tunhridgeme, H. Wilsoni, and H. imilaterale. On 

 such grounds I presume that Mr. Bcntham considered the pro- 

 priety of excluding the two latter, and retaining but one British 

 species, that of H. tunhridgense. There are no tribes of plants 

 to which I have devoted more patient investigation and practical 

 research amid the alpine and subalpine districts, and the wooded 

 glens and ravines of the western and south -Avestern parts of this 

 country, than to those of the genera Trichomanes and Hymeno- 

 phyllum. As my remarks are with reference to the latter genus, 

 it is proper that the distinctive characters should be given, and 

 to submit to you, in the recent state, masses of each species. 

 It is not necessary to go into detail^ when the excellent de- 

 scriptions, which are well defined, can be readily referred to in 

 Hooker and Arnott's ' British Flora,^ p. 592, Hooker^s ' Species 

 Filicum/ vol. i. p. 95, and Wilson's observations in Hooker's 

 ' Journal of Botany,' vol. i. p. 31 7, and again in ' Supplement to 

 English Botany,' t. 2686. With regard to H. Wilsoni, I may 

 however mention that the characteristics of H. tunhridgense 

 from H. Wilsoni are, in the broader, almost lanceolate, and more 

 delicate structure of frond, and which is of large size; pinnse 

 pinnatifid, with numerous segments, distichous, or pointing in 

 opposite directions, and flat ; the involucres, both in the early 

 stage and in the ripened state of the capsules, broadly ovate, or, 

 more properly, subrotundate, invai'iably toothed or spinous, and 

 swollen only at the base ; colour, pale glossy-green. In H. Wil- 

 soni the pinnge are unilateral, scarcely pinnatifid, and with fewer 

 segments than in //. tunhridgtnse, and with the rachis curved in 

 a direction contrary to that of the fructification; involucres nu- 

 merous, truly ovate, each valve remarkably convex, gibbous or 

 inflated throughout, touching only by their edges, which are 

 entire, and destitute of the toothed or spinous character of the 

 valves which distinguish H. tunhridgense ; plant of smaller size 

 than H. tunhridgense, niore rigid, of a strongly reticulated na- 

 ture, and of a darker or lurid green. It is however in the 



N. S. VOL. III. 3 F 



