CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES. 13 



Hob. On rocks in wooded deans, not uncommon. Banks 

 of the Eye, Rev. A. Baird. Banks of the Whiteadder 

 opposite Edrington Castle ; Dulaw Dean, &c. July. 7/ 



A more common and less beautiful Fern than the last, of 

 which some good botanists have considered it a variety. 

 After a careful examination of numerous specimens gather- 

 ed by myself, with some which I owe to the liberality of 

 Mr Arnott, I cannot but consider them distinct, and the 

 annexed outline figures of the leaves give a correct idea of 

 their differences, and may enable the student to determine 

 the plants with comparative facility. No dependence is to 

 be placed on the relative differences in the colour, rigidity 

 or breadth of the fronds, for these characters vary equal, 

 ly in both species. The chief, and indeed only distinc? 

 tion, lies in the leaflets, stalked, erect, and more or less 

 lobed, in the one, decurrent, oblique, and not lobed, in the 

 other. The latter is certainly the Asp. aculeatum of HOOK- 

 ER, in Flor. Scot. ii. 154 ; and likewise of the foreign bo- 

 tanists, if the specimen given in MOUGEOT and NESTLER'S 

 Slirpes Cryptogamce, No. 206, be a genuine representative of 

 their plant. This name in fact is much preferable, seeing 

 that what SMITH calls lobatum is not lobed, while his acu- 

 leatum is. The figure of the former in Eng. Bot. is a fair 

 representation of our plant, which is the Polypodium aculea- 

 tum of BOLT ON, excellently delineated in tab. 26 of his use- 

 ful work, and erroneously referred to by SMITH as Aspi- 

 dlum aculeatum. 



Such are our Berwickshire plants, which are surely identical 

 with the English Ferns bearing the same names. Dr 

 HOOKER, however, says that his Scotch specimens appear 

 to him (and where is there a more competent judge ?) u de- 

 cidedly distinct" from his English ones ; and yet curiously 

 enough, he describes the latter in a Flora Scotica, and passes 

 over in silence the true and distinct natives of the country, 

 equally neglected in his subsequent British Flora. " Nisi 

 omnem geographicam cognitionem plantarum perire volu- 

 mus, pernecessarium est ut talia errata corrigamus," says 

 the excellent WAHLENBERG ; and Dr HOOKER, we doubt 

 not, will admit the justice of the remark. Dr GREVILLE, 

 in his Flora Edinensis, has likewise followed a plan, in rela- 

 tion to these species, which leads to not less confusion. He 

 has apparently copied the specific characters from HOOKER, 

 and has appended to them the detailed descriptions of 

 SMITH, descriptions which, as we have seen, do not in fact 

 belong to the plants characterized I I make these remarks 

 not in the spirit of captious criticism, but because I think 



