250 87. FILIOES. 



church, Westmoreland, on the 17th of August, 1798 ; and 

 that, after having been shown to several botanists in Lon- 

 don, who were unable to give a name for it, the frond was 

 eventually sent to Sir J. E. Smith, who pronounced it to 

 be the species now under notice. The church having 

 been since rebuilt, the locality no longer allows of verifi- 

 cation. But the frond being still or recently (1849) in the 

 possession of Mr. S. Thompson, the name is probably 

 correct ; any present doubt attaching rather to the alleged 

 station, than to the plant itself. Thirdly, the fern may 

 possibly grow within the county of Peebles, as we are told 

 by Mr. William Stevens (Phytologist iii. 392) that it oc- 

 curs in considerable abundance, on very steep crumbling 

 rocks, among the hills that divide the counties of Dum- 

 fries and Peebles, Fourthly, it has been reported to 

 grow on Ben Lawers ; but the W. hyperborea was perhaps 

 there mistaken for the present species. I am not able to 

 state the altitude with any exactness. The only place in 

 which this fern has been gathered by myseK, is that near 

 the station of the Oxj^tropis campestris, on the moimtains 

 of Clova, Forfarshire, which is rudely estimated at 600 or 

 650 yards. Probably the plant grows at a greater altitude 

 in Wales, and may there attain to the midarctic zone. 

 The alleged station of Crosby Eavensworth church would 

 bring down the species into the agrarian region, and 

 perhaps into the midagi'arian zone. But is it not more 

 probable that the frond was picked on the hills near that 

 church, and not on the church itself ? I have repeatedly 

 had occasion to remark that many botanists of the last 

 century were indifferent about the precise stations of 

 plants, and very loose in their records. 



