74 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



Highlands. There are several so-called varieties, chiefly 

 modifications produced by lack or excess of vigour due to the 

 situations in which they are found. On this point it would not 

 be amiss to quote the late Mr. E. J. Lowe, F.R.S., who was an 

 enthusiastic raiser of fern varieties and hybrids, and therefore 

 more inclined to be a "splitter" than a "lumper." He classes 

 the Broad Buckler, and the Hay-scented Buckler (Nephrodium 

 <zmuluiii) as forms of N. spinulosum, and says concerning 

 them : " There can be no doubt that locality, especially height 

 above the sea, changes the character of a plant. We may 

 instance the common Brake, which attains twelve feet in height 

 on Longridge Fell, and yet only four inches near the summit 

 of Helvellyn. As a rule, ferns are diminutive on mountains. 

 In a wood at Hackness, near Scarborough. . . . N. dilatatuin 

 was near the base of the hill five feet high, and was common 

 to half-way up this hill, where N. cEimdum mingled with it ; 

 higher, ceimilum was common and dilatatum absent. My 

 brother and myself being surprised at this change, we deter- 

 mined to test it ; and from many thousand plants of amulmti 

 we removed 500 to Highfield House. In a couple of years 

 several changed to dilatatum; the next year an increased 

 number, until at length (zmultim was the exception to the rule. 

 At the same time we had a score in pots but none of these 

 changed. The same has occurred with the mountain form 

 alpinum, dwarf plants on removal having much increased in 

 size." He gives further examples of similar changes and 

 reversions in species of other genera, to which we may have 

 to refer again in the proper place. 



The name dilatatum is Latin, and has reference to the 

 enlarged or expanded form of the frond as compared with 

 that of N. spinulosum; and the same idea is expressed by the 

 English name. The people have not differentiated this from 

 ferns in general by bestowing a folk-name. 



