220 VAraETIES OF PERNS IN THE 'BRISTOL DISTIUOT. 



occasion seventeen plants on a bank in a different part oi 

 the same county, all barren. Several districts in Somersct- 

 Bhire (Silverton, Wiveliscombe, Chard, Frome, etc.) have 

 been more than ordinarily productive of this variety, and 

 that very distinct form, laceratum (or endivifolium), was 

 found at Taunton; and it was in the lower parts of the 

 Quantock district tliat the late Mr. Elwortliy made, many 

 years ago, those remarkable discoveries in Polystichum 

 angulare which helped to give a greatly increased interest 

 to the study of British ferns, and subsequently Mr. (i. .15. 

 Wollaston, Mr. Padley, Dr. Wills, and myself found many 

 fine and distinct varieties in the same district. Nor "may it 

 perhaps be without interest to bear in mind that it was in 

 this same district, wluch formed Mr. p]l worthy's happy hunt- 

 ing ground, tliat Mr. (xeorge Perceval made his remarkable 

 discovery of Devonian corals, not less beautiful than geologi- 

 cally interesting. It would thus seem to bo proved that the 

 affinity between this part of Somerset with South Devon, 

 where so many of the finer forms of P. angulare have 

 been found, is not superficial. Nor in.ny it be unworthy 

 of notice also that that energetic discoverer Mr. W. H. 

 Phillips, of Belfast, has proved by his researches that a 

 certain marked botanical affinity exists between the soutli- 

 west of England and Ireland, the north more especially. 

 There are certain marked forms of P. angulare, of which 

 single plants had been found in the west of England, and 

 which, having, after very exhaustive researches, never been 

 found in any other part of England, had long been classed 

 among the forms peculiar to the south-west; yet after all 

 this had long been comfortably settled, Mr. Phillips turns 

 up with liis inconvenient discoveries and unsettles every- 

 thing ; if there were two ferns which had earned the 

 character of having been entirely unique, those ferns were 



