VAIIIETIES OF FEKNS IN THE BRISTOL DISTEICT. 2i!3 



Cetekagh OFMCINARUM. 



Var. Crenatum waa found maiiy years since at Kiugs- 

 weston. 



Thus it will be seen that though the Bristol district can- 

 not be regarded as exceptionally productive in varieties, it 

 has contributed in an unassuming way its quota of varieties, 

 among wliich arc more than one that will hold a permanent 

 plac:0 in all good collections of British ferns. But if the 

 area of research were extended beyond the somewhat 

 arbitrary bounds which in this case geology has assigned 

 to it, and it were allowable to include the remainder of the 

 counties of Somerset and Gloucester and the county of 

 Monmouth, which may fairly be considered as naturally be- 

 longing to the district of which Bristol is the centre, some 

 of the most productive districts in England would come 

 under our notice. 



TIio I^orest of Dean, and still more the county of Mon- 

 moutli, are rich in varieties of Scolopendrium, and par- 

 ticularly in the iinost form of all, crispum ; nor do I be- 

 lieve that I go too far in saying that Monmouthshire has 

 produced, nearly as many specimens of this beautiful 

 variety as the rest of England altogether; and as this 

 variety is barren, except in very rare instances (none of 

 which are applicable in this case), this pro(hictivoncss is 

 clearly due less to accident than to some local peculiarity. 

 Some of the Monmouthshire forms of crispum (" robus- 

 tum," "serratum," " fimbriatum," " latissimum," etc.) are 

 among the iinest of their class. Tiiis variety, owing to its 

 barrenness, is generally found in single plants, or two or 

 three together at the outside, and the discovery of half 

 a dozen plants by the same hunter is generally considered 

 the work of a life ; but by singular fortune I once found 

 twelve plants in one lane in Monmouthshire, and on another 



