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tions to the recent vegetation of these lands, seems farther evinced 

 by the fact of its not having hitherto been found in the central 

 counties of Great Britain. To speculate upon the geological epoch 

 at which its introduction took place, would be useless ; but it is 

 highly interesting to the philosophic observer, to trace the suc- 

 cessive distributions of a plant, which, like the present, indigenous 

 to the islands of the North Atlantic from the Cape de Verde to 

 the Azores, wafted by wind and wave, arrives on the coast of Sus- 

 sex, Devon, and Cornwall ; beyond, the same agents land it in 

 Somersetshire, Glamorganshire, Merioneth, and Anglesea; still 

 onward, it reaches Lancashire and Cumberland, the western islands 

 and mainland of Scotland, and plants a colony in Orkney ; lastly, 

 the returning current lodges the later wanderers in Angus, and, 

 southward, at Scarborough in Yorkshire : in the latter county, its 

 most inland habitats seem at present to be attained in the vicinity 

 of Ripon and Settle. 



Few ferns are more indifferent to soil or exposure : it is met 

 with in damp woods, and under the shelter of moist hedge-banks 

 and thickets, attaining in such localities a height of one or two 

 feet, and a degree of luxuriance surprising to those previously only 

 acquainted with its smaller forms ; for, although shelter and abun- 

 dant moisture are favourable to its full development, it is often 

 found growing from the clefts of sandstone and other rocks in the 

 most exposed situations, the fronds being only from two to six 

 inches long. The fronds spring in a circular manner from a broad 

 crown, curving downward very gracefully in large specimens, as 

 they extend : they are of a pale but lively green hue, and remark- 

 able for their curled or crisped appearance, arising from the mar- 

 gins of the lobes and pinnules being curved upwards so as to 

 render their upper surface concave. The leafy portion occupies 

 about one-half of the length, and is of an elongated triangular 

 form, in young specimens nearly deltoid ; the rachis, especially at 

 the lower part, being rather densely clothed with pale, diaphanous, 

 long, narrow, and generally laciniated scales. In mature plants, 

 the tripinnate character is very constant at the base of the frond 

 and of its principal divisions ; and the tertiary pinnules and lobes 

 being all serrated, the serratures terminating in short spines, give 

 a complexity of outline so peculiar as to render it difficult, even 

 at the first glance, to confound this with any other species or 

 variety, especially when combined with the concavity of surface, so 

 strikingly opposed to the convexity of that of L. dilatata. Minute 

 globular sessile glands are scattered over the whole under surface 

 of the frond, whence the odour resembling new-made hay, from 

 which the specific name is derived. The sori are nearly equally 

 distributed over the frond; they are covered by roundish, reni- 

 form, generally evanescent indusia, which are irregularly cut or 



