VARIETIES OE EERNS IN THE BRISTOL DISTKICT. 221 



P. angulare rotmidatiun of Elwortliy, a Somerset form, and 

 P. anjr. acrocladon, found by Mr. Mapplebeck iti South 

 Devon; Mr. Phillips produces unmistakable counterparts 

 of both in Ireland ; another most rare and marked form, 

 P. ang. brachiato-cristatum, which long experience had 

 seemed to have proved conclusively to bo peculiar to the 

 south of England, Mr. Phillips also finds in the north of 

 Ireland. It was exactly the same with another rare and 

 beautiful form, " cunoato-setosum," of which only two plants 

 had ever before been found, one by Mr. Moly, the other by 

 Mr. Gr. B. Wollaston, and both in the south-west of England. 

 Also the very extreme form of P. ang. grandiceps (of which 

 two plants, apparently identical, had been found by different 

 people in different parts of Ireland), was found more than 

 once by Mr. J. Moly in Devon. The grand form of P. ang. 

 polydactylum, found by the Rev. 0. Padley in the Vale of 

 Avoca, was long considered an miiquo plant, until I found, 

 in the south of England, one so closely resembling it, that 

 the seedlings of the two plants are often scarcely, if at all, 

 distinguishable. As other instances of the rediscovery in 

 Ireland of plants previously considered in England unique, 

 that of Lastrea f.-mas. Barnesii deserves to be recorded ; it 

 is well known as one of the most distinct forms ; yet the late 

 Dr. Moore, of Ulasneven, found in Co. Kerry a plant so 

 closely resembling it in every way that Mr. Barnes himself, 

 than whom a keener observer never lived, could see no 

 difference between the two ; and Mr. Tyerman found in Ire- 

 land a plant of Athyrium f.-f. plumosum (that most ladylike 

 of all the lady ferns), so very like the original Lancashire 

 plumosum, that only a very keen judge could detect a dif- 

 loronce. Thus Nature herself having in this, as in so many 

 other ways, linked Ireland to us so closely in every branch 

 of natural history, sliall wo not all breathe a prayer— more 



