ADDITIONAL SPECIES, ETC. 371 



" When I was in Madeira a lady of the name of Veitch, 

 whom we knew there, showed me a small dried specimen 

 of a fern wliich she had gathered in Scotland, I think in 

 Aberdeenshii'e, and which was, to all appearance, pre- 

 cisel}^ the same as the Gjannogramma leptoiDhj^lla of Ma- 

 deira. — William Tanner, Ashley Grange, Bristol, Dec. 

 23, 1851." 



This seems pretty strong and dii'ect testimony to a fact, 

 which is much at variance with the preconceived opinion 

 that a botanical geographer would have formed on the 

 question of probable occurrence. But two sources of 

 error are obvious as iDossibihties, not to say as probabi- 

 lities. In the first place, Mrs. or Miss Veitch may have 

 inadvertently mingled specimens from Scotland and Ma- 

 deira, or may have misplaced a label, or mis-remembered 

 a locality, &c. In the second place, either the lady in 

 question or Mr. Tanner may have been mistaken in re- 

 gard to the identity of the species. I thus consider the 

 report not sufficient for reliance, in the absence of other 

 circumstances tending towards corroboration of the fact. 

 The Editor of the Phytologist (" E. N.") thinks " there is 

 no climatal or geographical improbability to be urged as 

 an objection to the finding this pretty little fern in Aber- 

 deenshire." With that opinion I am miprepared to con- 

 cur ; among other reasons, because there is no instance 

 of a species trxily indigenous in Scotland and Madeira, 

 but unknown in England and Ireland. But while this 

 I)age is in type, Mr. Newman favours me with an argu- 

 ment in support of his view ; namely, " I tliink the me- 

 trojwlis of this fern is the Alps of Europe : Madeira is an 

 outlying station. The same facts obtain with Polj^podium 

 alpestre : metropolis Europe, alpine ; found outlying in 

 Scotland and Tenerifi"e." 



