38 PARSLEY FEEN. 



Asylum ; the Rev. Mr. Pindar and Miss Beever upon the Old Man Moun- 

 tain ; the late Mr. S. Gibson and Mr. Gutoh have collected it at Cliviger, 

 near Todmorden, and at Thevely, near Burnley; Mr. Sidebotham and Dr. 

 Wood at Fo-edge, near Bury. In the English counties southward of Lan- 

 cashire and Yorkshire it is a fern of excessive rarity. We find it recorded 

 for Cheshire, in the ' Botanist's Guide,' as oocurrmg on the top of Tag's 

 Ness, a hill near Macclesfield. The same authority gives Chinley Hills, 

 near Chapel-le- Frith, in Derbyshhe. In Shropshire, following the steps 

 of Messrs. Cameron, Westcott, Westcombe, BurHngham, and Southall, I 

 found it during the past summer on the Titterstone Clee Hill, where it 

 occurs sparingly in four widely separated stations, amongst the masses of 

 basalt that characterize that remarkable district. In Worcestershire, Mr. 

 Lees records that he found it very sparingly on the Herefordshire Beacon, 

 one of the beautiful range known as the Malvern Hills : it grows only in 

 one spot, and there were but very few plants, one of which he most kindly 

 gave me. In Somersetshire, Mr. Nathaniel Ward found a few plants 

 about a mile from Simmon's Bath, growing on a stone wall at Challicombe, 

 in company with Polystichum alpinum. The probability of this pretty 

 little fern maintaining a standing in these outlying stations is, I fear, very 

 small ; I believe it is already lost in Derbyshire and Worcestershire. 



In Wales the parsley fern occurs sparingly in the Snowdon district, also 

 in a few other parts of Caernarvonshire, and in Denbighshu-e, Montgomery 

 and Merioneth : in the last-named county, T found it on stone walls near 

 Dolgelly, and on the ascent as well as summit of Cader Idris. In South 

 Wales it is comparatively rare ; but I am indebted to Mr. Edward Young 

 for a specimen gathered in Glamorganshu'e. 



In Ireland, the range of the parsley fern is still more restricted than 

 either in England or Wales. Mr. Mackay speaks of it as abundant on the 

 Moume Mountains, in the county Down, but this appears a mistake ; it 

 has occurred there, but, so far as I can ascertain, very rarely. The late 

 Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, whose recent loss as a most zealous naturalist 

 Ireland has so much reason to lament, when in company with Mr. Tem- 

 pleton (another Irish botanist, now, alas! lost to science), Mr. Mackay and 

 Dr. Stokes, found it sparingly in the crevices of rocks about the summit of 

 Slieve Bignian, in the same county ; but they spent ten hours in an un- 

 successful attempt to rediscover it on the Mourne range. Mr. Moore, of 

 Glasnevin, found a very few plants within the Hberties of Carricltfergus, in 

 the county Antrim ; and Mr. Thompson found one specimen on Carling- 

 ford Mountain, in the county Louth. 



