270 



LASTREA FILIX-MAS. 



found the previous year's fronds were still attached, and were 

 equally as curious as the one illustrated. Mr. Monkman has 

 no doubt of the permanency of this curiosity, and reports the 

 plant as being healthy. 



Fig. 220. 



Polydactyla-Bloxamii, Lowe. (Fig. 220.) — Mr. Wollaston 

 has furnished me with information of several subforms of 

 cristata. One found near Tenby in South Wales, and brought 

 into notice by Mr. E. Bloxam, of Eltham, Kent. It is a very 

 beautiful and symmetrical polydactylous form, perfectly normal 

 in all its parts, except that the apices both of the frond and 

 pinnaj are many-fingered or hand-shaped. It might be dis- 

 tinguished by the name polydactyla-Bloxamii. My thanks are 

 due to Mr. R. Bloxam for the illustration. Another found 

 near Petersfield, Hampshire, by Mr. G, B. Wollaston, is one 

 of the subcristate forms, connecting the normal form, through 

 the polydactylous, with the truly cristate varieties of the 

 species. It is of the ordinary type, but having in all its 

 parts the germs of cristation, even to the pinnules. The 

 autumnal is generally more developed than the spring growth, 

 which is sometimes perfectly normal; it might be distinguished 

 as subcristata. Another found by Mr. Swynfen Jervis in 

 Drumble Lane, near Darlaston Hall, Staffordshire, is another 

 subcristate variety, difiering only from the last in being less 

 multifid, and being of rather attenuated growth. A fourth 

 subcristate variety was found at Uckfield, Sussex, by Mr. 



