172 LASTREA FILIX-MAS. 
Besides all the diagnostics mentioned most considerately im a 
foot-note under the head of the “ Male Fern,” in Messrs. Moore 
and Lindley’s beautiful work on the British Ferns, printed from 
nature by Mr. Henry Bradbury, and also at page 191 of Mr. 
Edward Newman’s excellent work on the same subject, there are 
others which I will endeavour to expla. But before doing so 
it is incumbent on me to state that most, if not all, botanists, 
and even Pteridologists, consider the three forms here treated of 
as varieties only of Lastrea Filix-mas, and not as distinct species ; 
on the contrary, I have myself for many years felt persuaded 
that they were entitled to the higher rank, and have even pre- 
sumptuously thought botanists very short-sighted not to be able 
to distmmguish them at a glance, and it still remains a puzzle to | 
me that they cannot. Of course I am about to speak only of 
the most typical normal forms, and not those varieties that run 
so close together in almost all genera, that defy human beings to 
separate into distinct links the unbroken chain of recent and 
primeval vegetable nature. 
COMPARATIVE DIAGNOSTICS OF 
LastreA Finix-mas.—Spores (fig. 1) olive-brown, keeled, ver- 
rucose ; verrucee comma- or serpent-shaped, disconnected. Indu- 
sium soft, evanescent. Frond undulate, decaying 
in winter, papery. 
Dryorreris Friix-mas, var. Borreri (N.)*.— 
L. Filix-mas, var. paleacea (M.).—L. pseudo-mas 
(species) (W.).— Spores (fig. 2) olive-brown, ob- 
soletely keeled, verrucose; verrucz zigzag, spotted 
between, sub-connected. IJndusium rigid, persist- 
ent. Frond flat, sub-evergreen, not decaying in 
winter, rigid; dark spot at the axils of the pinne 
always present (Mr. Newman says “ frequently”). 
Lastrea Finrx-mas, var. pumila _(M.).—Dry- 
opteris Filix-mas, var. abbreviata (N.).—L. abbre- 
viata (species) (W.).—Spores (fig. 3) olive-green, not keeled, 
minutely and regularly verrucose. Indusium sub-rigid, “glandu- 
lar.’ Frond crisped, sub-evergreen, rigid. 


* (N:) Newman. (M.) Moore. (W.) Wollaston. 
