SHORT NOTES. 185 



but I am strongly of opinion that it is indigenous in E. Suffolk, 

 Dr. Hind, who agrees in this, kindly refers me to the first publica- 

 tion of the station (Burgate Wood), by Mr. C. J. Ashfield, son of a 

 former Vicar of Burgate, in the ■ Phytologist,' n.s., 1862, p. 351 ; 

 and adds that it also occurs in a small wood in an adjoining 

 parish. I had no thought of its being native until I actually saw 

 it in situ, when the probability of this at once struck me as very 

 great. Growing in an apparent remnant of the old forest, the 

 only introduced plants seen being a few young larches at one end, 



m the company of Paris, Viola, Valeriana officinalis, Spima Ulmaria, 

 Allium Ursinum, &c, it seemed equally wild with any of them, and 

 equally capricious in its selection of spots to grow in, occurring in 

 patches in various parts of the wood. A woman who was binding 

 faggots told me that it had been known there as long as she could 

 remember, and that all the villagers considered it a native. A 

 very important factor in the evidence is the absence of spots on the 

 leaves, which are also darker and less flaccid than in the form so 

 common as a cottage ornament. Nyman, curiously enough, gives 

 it as a rare inhabitant of England, without mark of suspicion ; and 

 the continental distribution is quite in favour of its natural 

 occurrence here. Mr. Watson's rejection of certain E. Anglian 

 plants will carry less weight if (as I have been informed) he never 

 visited that part of the country. — Edward S. Marshall. 



Vitality of Spores of Gymnogramma leptophylla. — In 1880 I 

 spent some time in the Channel Islands, and when in Jersey made 

 enquiry f M. Piquet as to the above fern, and was told that it was 

 hen (August) too late in the season to find it. He very kindly gave 

 me exact information of one of the known localities, from which 

 I obtained some of the surface-earth. Plenty of plants came up 

 that autumn, and a succession of them for some years since. Only 

 a small portion of the Jersey earth obtained was used at the time, 

 the remainder being left tied up in the box in which it was brought 

 over. In October, 1886, having prepared a small seed-pan, and 

 poured boiling water over the soil in it to destroy any insects, &c, 

 a small quantity of the Jersey earth of 1880 was scattered on the 

 surface, and a bell-glass put on. It was then placed in the green- 

 bouse, where there were no other plants of the species. Some pro- 

 thalli^e appeared in the autumn, and some time in June, 1887, 

 small fronds were seen, and since then others have come up, and 

 !ast mtumn the pan was thickly covered with young plants. The 

 spores had thus retained their vitality at all events for seven years ; 

 wbat further length of time they may have remained dormant 

 before 1880 it is, of course, impossible to say. I left some of the 

 1880 earth with the Curator, Mr. Nicholson, at Kew Gardens, on 

 October 2nd, 1886, who said they would try it as a check experi- 

 ment. On visiting the gardens, July 11th, 1887, 1 was told that the 

 plants had come up plentifully.— A. Sharland. 



