FILICES. Ill 



rium molle, Roth, Newman, appears to me merely a young or weak 

 form of var. a: it has the pinnules approximate, only serrate or 

 crenate, and often connected by a wing on each side of the partial 

 rachis, so that the frond is scarcely so much as bipinnate ; but 

 wild specimens having these characters, although large enough to 

 bear sori, on being transplanted into rich soil and cultivated, have 

 developed into the larger and more compound forms of var. a, which 

 we find growing naturally in woods. If these small forms be culti- 

 vated in pots or on dry rock-work, the dwarf and little-divided state 

 of the fronds remains constant, and it is perhaps from treating them 

 in this manner that the idea has originated that molle is a permanent 

 variety. Var. marinum, Moore, var. confluens, Moore, var. allatum, 

 Moore, and var. latifolium, Bab., seem to me all small forms of var. a, 

 while the beautiful form "plumosum" (Phegopteris plumosa, J. Smith, 

 'Ferns British and Foreign,' p. 28), which has tripinnate fronds and 

 strapshaped serrate or inciso-serrate, longly-acuminate ultimate pin- 

 nules, can only be considered as a monstrosity, as it either does not 

 fruit at all, or produces round sori without an indusium or with a 

 very rudimentary one. The original plant of plumosum was found 

 near Skipworth in Yorkshire, by Mr. J. Horsefall, and from the 

 spores of these, plants similar to the parents have been raised. This 

 propagation of abnormal forms by spores may perhaps, as previously 

 stated, be owing to asexual production of plants from the prothallia 

 similar to that observed in Pteris serrulata ; these plants would then 

 be merely produced by budding, and therefore retain all the pecu- 

 liarities of the individual from which they were derived. Forms 

 more or less approximating to plumosum have been found in various 

 localities. I am favoured with a specimen cultivated from Mr. G. B. 

 Wollaston, labelled from Dorsetshire, J. S. Wells. This, however, is 

 not so completely tripinnate as the Yorkshire plant, though very 

 nearly so, and the ultimate segments are shorter and broader. I 

 possess one received from Messrs. Sang of Kirkcaldy, in which some 

 of the fronds are like the ordinary fronds of the less divided forms 

 of var. a ; while in others the pinnae are deeply pinnatifid, and again 

 cut into oblong lobes. This is named " plumosum Axminster fertile ;" 

 but it is much less finely divided than the Todmorton form, and that 

 called var. dissectum Wollaston. 



In Orkney I found a small form, which I suppose would be called 

 molle by those who retain this as a variety, in which a large portion 

 of the sori were round and without indusium ; but as these fronds 

 were gathered in the end of July, the sori may have had an 

 indusium when younger. A plant of this form which I brought home 

 died, so I was unable to make further observations. 



Yar. /3, when growing in exposed situations, is remarkable for its 

 pinnaa being convex, the margins being reflexed, so that the pinnae 

 appear very narrow and disconnected ; but a plant of this form under 

 a foot high has developed in cultivation into a plant 3 feet high, with 



