1858.] REVIEWS. 439 



Hijimum fluviatile, Swartz. — North Yorksshire : in fruit, on 

 the north side of the Yore, near Tanfield, ./. G. Baker ; and also 

 in the Swale, at Aisenby, J. H. D. 



Dicranum spurium, Hedw. — West Yorkshire, 1858: Sawley 

 Moor, with Didimodon flexifolius. 



Gleanings among the British Ferns ; Illustrated by dried Sped' 



mens. By Jane M. Patison. London : William Pamplin, 



45, Frith-street, Soho-square. 



A crabby reviewer would write in a peevish mood, " Another 

 publication on Ferns !" Yes, gentle public, another work on 

 British Ferns, and illustrated, as the fair authoress declares, by 

 genuine specimens. This new book, on a very popular subject, 

 contains, first, an elegant and copious description of the plant, 

 with much graphic matter about the scenery, the solitudes, the 

 awful solemnities of the places where the said species grow ; and 

 then there is -the beautiful object itself, so delicately manipulated, 

 so daintily handled, so nicely attached to the paper, that one is 

 in a fix, as our transatlantic cousins would say, to decide whether 

 the Fern is most to be admired, or the patience, neatness, and 

 good taste of the authoress. It may perhaps be a new fact to 

 the authoress of the ' Gleanings among the British Ferns,^ yet 

 it is a fact, that Cystopteris montana was discovered by Mr. 

 Thomas Westcombe in a locality which he considers the third 

 in Scotland. He does not specify where this locality is, but it 

 is probably on the range of hills between Glen Lochay and Glen 

 Dochart, and, consequently, not far from the place where it Avas 

 collected by Mr. Borrer and Mr. Brown in 1841. 



Under Polypodium Phegopteris, p. 18, it is stated that this 

 name is a misnomer, because the Beech-Fern, as it is called, 

 does not grow in beech- woods. This might be true if the species 

 were confined to the British Isles, and if we were to construe 

 the component parts of the term Phegopteris literally, a pro- 

 cedure rather unusual among botanists, and especially among 

 etymological botanists, and there may be some whose botany 

 even does not outgrow their etymology. The original sponsor 

 to this name did not confer it on the Fern because it grows 



