60 



BRITISH FERNS. 



Much confusion exists as to the variety to which Sir J. E. 



Smith has given the name dumetorum. The upper figure in this 

 page represents the plant to which the name 

 is usually applied ; it is dwarf, rigid, convex 

 in every part, and usually of a very dark 

 green colour, sometimes inclining tobrown ; 

 the masses of thecae are nearly black. It 

 occurs in abundance on the boggy and 

 mountainous districts of Scotland and Ire- 

 land, and I have seen it, although more 

 sparingly, in North Wales. Its character 

 does not vary perceptiblyin cultivation. The 

 fronds labelled dumetorum in the Smithian 

 Herbarium appear to me to belong to 

 this plant, but they are evidently blighted, 

 or otherwise deformed, and hence it is 

 very difficult to identify them. 



It fortunately happens that the identical 

 plants which Sir J. E. Smith described, 

 and to which he alludes in the English 



Flora, as raised from seed, are at present in existence ; they 

 are in the Botanic Garden of Liverpool, 

 and are similar to the lower figure in this 

 page ; the colour is a light and bright 

 green ; the form is triangular, the size 

 diminutive, and all parts of the frond, 

 the pinnae, pinnulaa, and the lobes or 

 divisions of the pinnulae, are concave. I 

 have seen the plants in question, labelled 

 correctly, but not having met with Mr. 

 Sheppard, the curator of the garden, I 

 was not aware they were authentic, and 

 am indebted to Mr. Moore for the inform- 

 ation that they are the identical speci- 

 mens described by Smith. 



In the fourth volume of the Magazine 

 of Natural History, page 162, we have 

 the same plant described and figured by 

 the Rev. W. T. Bree, under the name 

 Aspidium dilatatum recurvum. The 

 wood-cut has been most obligingly 



lent me by Mr. Loudon, and is republished in the following page. 



