BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 299 
is taken of Mr. Hutcheson’s Scotch locality for the plant, which I pointed 
out as long ago as 1848 (see ‘ Phytologist,’ vol. iii. p. 319). Now this, I 
think, is hardly fair dealing towards the Fern. I take the liberty therefore 
to repeat, that Mr. Hutcheson inforined me he had met with the plant in 
considerable abundance on “shaded rocks by the sea, two miles north-east 
of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, in 1842.” I have only to remark further, 
that Mr. H. could be under no mistake as to the species, for he showed me 
a veritable living plant of 4. fontanum in the garden at Boxley Abbey, 
which indeed led to the information which he gave me on the subject, 
and which he assured me he had received from a friend in Scotland who 
had gathered it in the above locality, where he had himself previously 
found it, as already stated. I am the more anxious to repeat this state- 
ment, in the hope that it may lead some botanist or tourist who may have 
the opportunity to examine the locality and confirm the accuracy of Mr. H.’s 
information, and thus establish, by additional evidence, the claims of this 
elegant Fern to a place in our native Flora. Wie BRE, 
Allesley Rectory, January 9, 1856. 
[We were aware that this Fern had been reported from several other 
parts of Brita besides those mentioned in a communication on the sub- 
ject in page 221 of the New Series of the ‘ Phytologist.’ We omitted the 
Stonehaven locality because we are informed by Mr. Moore, in his ‘ Hand- 
book of British Ferns,’ p. 152, that that particular locality no longer exists. 
Mr. Moore says, “ On rocks near Stonehaven, in a spot since destroyed by 
the construction of a railway.” For similar reasons ‘another locality is 
omitted. The claim of the Fern to a place among British plants has been 
slearly established on the authority of genuine examples submitted to com- 
setent authorities. | 
Misseltoe on the Oak. (From Loudon’s ‘ Arboretum.’)—‘‘ The Misseltoe 
of the Oak is so intimately connected with all the traditions of the Druids 
that we cannot doubt the fact of its having been actually found by them, 
especially as we are told that its being found by them was so rare an occur- 
rence as to be attended by rejoicing. . . . After numerous inquiries on this 
subject, we succeeded in March, 1837, in learning from Mr. D. Beaton, 
gardener at Hatfield, near Ledbury, that Mr. Pitt, a small farmer in that 
neighbourhood, recollected seeing it on an Oak-tree near Ledbury, adjoining 
0 which was a Willow-tree loaded with Misseltoe, from which the Oak was 
supposed to have been supplied: this Oak was cut downin 1831. Through 
the kindness of Mr. Moss, gardener to Earl Somers at Eastnor Castle, Mr. 
Beaton received an account of an Oak near the castle on which there are 
several plants of Misseltoe, one of which is of great age, and its branches 
occupy a space nearly five feet in diameter. The Misseltoe on the Oak 
grows with greater vigour and has broader leaves than that which grows | 
on the Apple-tree, and the stem does not form that swelling at its junction 
with the Oak that it does on most other trees. Of these facts we had 
ocular demonstration from a large and handsome specimen growing from 
an Oak-branch sent to us in March, 1837, by Mr. Beaton, and which (that 
the fact of the Misseltoe growing on the Oak might be no longer doubted 
by botanists and gardeners) we exhibited on April the 4th, 1837, at the meet- 
ings of the Horticultural Society and of the Linnean Society, held on that 
