126 TRICHOMANES. 



ovate or ovato-lanceolate 3 — 4-piunalifid, compact, 6 — 10 inches long, seg- 

 ments rather short ; stipes, even from the same caudex, varying from 1 — 5 

 inclies long and more or less winged). Woods above Port Stewart, Purdie; 

 (fronds barren, and perhaps a distinct species, broadly ov^te, more deeply 

 divided and spreading segments which are longer, narrower and linear ; 

 stipes li to 3 inches). Martinique, .SVeier ; (usual form). Brazil, Raddi, 

 Forbes, Macrae, Gardner, n. 203, Scolder, Sinclair, Vaulier, n. 165; fronds 

 sessile or nearly so, more elongated, 6 — 18 inches, primary divisions more 

 distant, segments generally longer and narrower, less spreading, involucres 

 sometimes more spreading at the mouth and rather more distinctly 2-lipped). 

 — Mexico; VeraCrnz, Linden ; (common form, fronds sessile and stipitate). 

 Xalapa, Galeolti, (elongated, fronds on short stipes, mouth of the iuvolucre 

 scarcely spreading, not 2-lipped, otherwise resembling the Brazilian form). 

 'r-Ahixsco, Linden ; (fronds scarcely tripiunatifid, H foot long, very black, 

 primary divisions remote, especially the lower ones, and extending almost 

 to the base, involucres with 2 rounded distinct lips, broader than the tube 

 of the involucre : perhaps a distinct species ?) — Forest of Esraeraldas, El 

 Equador, Col. Hall ; (fronds sessile resembling those from Brazil, but in- 

 volucres distinctly 2-lipped, as the preceding). — Sandwich Islands, Owhy- 

 hee, Menzics ; Oahu, Macrae, Doucjlas, Dicll ; (fronds more or less elon- 

 gated, of the normal form, sessile and stipitate, stipes sometimes 3 — 4 inches 

 long, involucres with and without lips). — Nepal, in tlie mountains, Wallich; 

 (fronds lanceolate and oblong-lanceolate, 4 inches to a foot long ; in other 

 respects resembling the usual structure ; involucres scarcely dilated up- 

 wards, without lips or very obscurely 2-lipped). — Europe ; Teneriffe, Brous- 

 sonet ; Madeira, Lowe and others. Azores, 2 — 3000 feet of elevation, Dr. 

 Hochstctter, H. C. Watson. England, very rare, at the head of a remark- 

 able spring, Belbank, 12 miles from Bingley, Yorkshire, Dr. Richardson,* 

 according to Dillenius, in Ray's ' Synopsis,' perhaps extinct. Powerscourt, 

 Miss Feiton, Dr. Wm. Stokes ; County of Wicklow, J. Nuttall, Esq. ; and 

 it has, I believe, been found recently in various localities in the south of 

 Ireland hy 3fr. Babingtoyi and Mr. Winterhottom ; (this form is ovate, com- 

 pact, almost exactly resembling the normal stale, but the stipes is more 

 elongated, sometimes 1 inch, generally 3 — 4 inches long, receptacles usu- 

 ally short or broken ; involucres without lips and not spreading at the 

 mouth, or with short moderately spreading ones). — Iveragh, Ireland, Sept. 

 1842, Wm. Andreirs, Esq. ; (fronds narrower and more elongated, 6 — 8 or 10 

 inches long, in other respects resembling the normal form ; fructifications 

 very copious, receptacles generally very much elongated; stipes 3 — 4 inches 

 long). — I regret to have been under the necessity of occupying so much 

 space in my attempts to unravel the difBculties which have always attended 

 the correct synonymy of one of our own most beautiful and rarest native 

 Ferns, and respecting which Sir J. E. Smith said, nearly thirty years ago, 

 that " few plants of almost any country have caused more enquiry, or more 

 diversity of opinion than this Fern."' Yet even Sir Jas. Smith did not sus- 

 pect that it was a plaut already, though imperfectly, described, of South 

 America, and even of Teneriffe and Madeira; nor has any one ventured to 

 publish it as the same to the present day, though I believe the probability 

 of identity has been suspected by several of our friends ; yet by no one so 

 much urged as by Mr. Andrews, who, from his having the good fortune 

 to discover a new habitat for a rather striking variety above mentioned, 



* A specimen from him, but a very imperfect one, is in the Banksian 

 herbarium, now in the British Museum. 



