87. FILICES. 275 



lU'L- ^*-^' AtHYRIXJM FONTANUM, " Pvesi." 



Area l**^;^,^,^,!^©,!^ 10,^ \ii ^ ^ loj. 



Incognit. Said to have been found by Mr. Bradney, a 

 botanist of last century, on the walls of Amersham church, 

 in the county of Bucks, and to have been brought thence 

 to Kew gardens. It no longer exists on the church ; 

 having been destroyed there, as supposed, by white- 

 washing the walls. To that station Hudson (Flora An- 

 glica) adds more vaguely, and without personal authority 

 expressly cited, "in locis saxosis, proj)e Wybourn in 

 Westmorlandia ". These are far from satisfactory evi- 

 dences in proof of the existence of this species as a true 

 native of Britain. More recent botanists have reported 

 it from other counties ; but in some of these instances the 

 plant shown has proved to be A. Halleri, a variety or 

 possibly second sj)ecies, cultivated in various gardens 

 under name of A. fontanum. To those botanists who 

 may be curious in tracing out the more modern authori- 

 ties, the following enumeration of the few counties re- 

 ported, with references, may be of some assistance : — 

 Surrey (Mr. C. Wood, on wrapper of Phytologist, June, 

 1851), Derby (Mr. Silvanus Thompson, in Phytol. i. 

 1081), York (Mr. Samuel Gibson, in Phytol. i. 452; also 

 Mr. E. M. Bedhead, in Phytol. i. 1084), Cumberland 

 (Hutcliinson, quoted in B. G., and Winch Contrib.), Kin- 

 cardine (Rev. W. T. Bree, in Phytol., but referring to 

 " Mr. David Hutcheson, gardener "). It is to be feared 

 that we have at present only garden plants, or errors of 

 name, as the data for deeming A. fontanum a British 

 species. 



