XVUl 



Cornish Botany. Mr. Alexander Paull read extracts 

 from the Paper contributed by Mr. Thomas Cragoe, containing 

 descriptions of interesting plants which that gentleman had found 

 growing in the parish of St. Clement. Asplen'mm trichomanes, Mr. 

 Paull said he had himself also found abundant in a lane in St. 

 Clements ; but, usually, it was found, with Ruta muraria, on old 

 church-walls and similar spots, as at St. Michael Penkevil and St. 

 Just in Eoseland. Though comparatively rare in this part of Corn- 

 wall, these plants were abundant in the eastern part of the county. 

 — Lastrma spinulosa was mentioned by Mr. Cragoe as having been 

 found at Bishop's Wood ; and in the same neighbourhood Mr. 

 Rickard had found Hymeno])hyllum Tunhridgense. Mr. Cragoe 

 also mentioned his finding the Cornish Money- Wort, ( SiUhorpia 

 Europma), at Tresemple ; and, in a bog under Polwhele, the Lan- 

 cashire Asphodel (Narthecium ossifragum). Another species of 

 Erica (E. ciliaris), rare out of Cornwall, was found near Short 

 Lane End, and at various other places in the vicinity of Truro. 

 Altogether, Mr. Cragoe's was an interesting contribution, and was 

 valuable, not only as a list of plants more or less rare, but also 

 because with regard to many of them it recorded their time of 

 flowering. 



Mr. Paull added that, some six years since, he found in the 

 parish of Feock, a variety of Lady Fern, previously, he believed, 

 unknown to botanists ; and, having kept it some years, he found 

 that it was not a mere spurt, but that it retained its characteristics 

 permanently. He gave specimens of it to several persons, and 

 one of them was sent by Mrs. Grant, of Collumpton, to Mr. 

 Thomas Moore, F.L.S., who pronounced it to be a new variety of 

 the Lady Fern, and thus described it in the Phytologist, of March, 

 1861:— 



"ATHYEinM FiLix-FQEMiNA, V. GrantiJe. — Fronds dwarf, six to eight 

 inches high, broadly oval-lanceolate, crispy, the rachis sometimes branched, 

 and the apex slightly mnltifid ; pinnas oblong, imbricated, slightly narrowed, 

 to a short blnntish point, somewhat irregular; pinnules crowded, overlapping, 

 bluntly ovate-oblong, wavy, pinuatifid with shallow lobes, which are divided 

 into two or three remarkably obtuse rounded teeth or crenatures, connected 

 at the base by a distinct wing to the rachis ; stipites and rachides stout ; sori 

 not developed. 



A very distinct and elegant dwarf form of Lady Fern, communicated by 

 Mrs. Grant, of Collumpton. The plant was found in the neighbourhood of 

 Truro, Cornwall, by Mr. Paull, and given to Mrs. Grant. The short broad 

 fronds with the parts very densely imbricated and the surface crispy, the 

 rounded teeth of its pinnules, and the occasionally multifid and ramose con- 

 dition of the rachides, are features quite unlike what are found in other 

 described forms, and render this a welcome addition to the already numerous 

 varieties of Lady Ferns." 



Another specimen was sent to Mr. Simms, the florist, who said he 



