jagged on the margin, and occasionally fringed with a few glands 

 similar to those mentioned above. 



This is a very beautiful species under cultivation, especially 

 when the contingencies of shade, moisture, and good drainage are 

 properly secured. Though of supposed tropical derivation, it is 

 one of our most hardy native ferns, and perfectly evergreen. I 

 have now, September 4th, before me a green frond of last year, 

 just gathered from a plant that was exposed throughout the winter 

 in a pot laid sideways on the fern-bank in my garden. This 

 character renders it valuable in the greenhouse, to which its mode- 

 rate size, lively green hue, and elegantly crisped habit, are farther 

 recommendations. Whether grown in the open ground or in pots, 

 the ordinary compost will suffice. 



Regarded by some botanists as a variety of L. dilatata or spinu- 

 losa, this still bears so much the impress of distinctness, that it 

 can scarcely be other than a species. In 1821, I first noticed it in 

 the vicinity of Dolgelley, and again in the Vale of Festiniog, and, 

 though marking its peculiarity, supposed it in my inexperience to 

 be a form of Aspidium dilatatum of Smith; it had not then re- 

 ceived name or notice among recent botanists, though apparently 

 referred to both by Ray and Plukenet ; nor was attention directed 

 to its very distinct character, even as a variety, until, in 1831, the 

 Rev. W. T. Bree described it in the f Magazine of Natural History/ 

 under the name of recurvum since which period, opinion has been 

 divided respecting its claim to rank as a species. It is to be 

 regretted that the name fognisecii, afterwards bestowed upon it by 

 Mr. Lowe, should have been adopted in preference to that of re- 

 curva, the odour differing very equivocally from that of other species 

 of fern, while the latter name expresses a positive feature by which 

 the plant is at once recognized. 



In regard to the other recorded species of the genus Lastrea, 

 viz. Aspidium dumetorum of Smith, and Lophodium collinum, glan- 

 dulosum, and uliginosum of Newman, they are at present too doubt- 

 fully circumstanced between the variable forms of spinulosa and 

 dilatata to be admitted, without farther and stricter observation 

 than has yet been bestowed, to occupy a separate station in a series 

 already encumbered with uncertainty. Mr. Moore, in the second 

 edition of his valuable ' Handbook/ makes L. spinulosa a variety 

 of L. cristata, and observes : " I unite the following forms under 

 one species, because, although the two extremes are apparently 

 distinct, they are so closely connected by the intermediate form 

 (uliginosa} as to be undistinguishable from one or other of the 

 conditions which the latter assumes." My own acquaintance with 

 uliginosa, confined to a single growing specimen, is too limited, 

 perhaps, to justify an opinion, but it inclines to an opposite con- 

 clusion, namely the entire exclusion of cristata from the equivocal 

 series now before us. 



