14 ANNUAL MAIDENHAIR. 



that the connexion of the Channel Islands with Britain is 

 political only, and that geographically and botanically they 

 belong to France. 



(Scotland.—-' When I was in Madeira, a lady of the name of Veitch, 

 whom we knew there, showed me a small dried specimen of a fern which 

 she had gathered in Scotland, I think in Aberdeenshire, and which was to 

 all appearance precisely the same as the Gymnogramma leptophylla of Ma- 

 deira."— Mr. WiUiam Tanner, Phytol. February 1852, (wrapper). " Seeing 

 in the February ' Phytologist ' the ' supposed discovery of Gymnogramma 

 leptophylla in Scotland,' I wrote to the discoverer (Miss Veitch) in Madeira, 

 to ascertain the exact locality of the plant in Aberdeenshire. That lady 

 very kindly and promptly sent me the communication, of which the follow- 

 ing is a copy : — ' I have much pleasure in informing you that the specimen 

 of Gymnogramma leptophylla in my possession, I discovered in a stone 

 dyke on the high road, on the right hand side, leading from Braemar (Aber- 

 deenshire) to Ballater, nearly opposite Invercauld House, and, as far as I 

 remember, where the Highlanders perform their annual feats at the gather- 

 ing, viz., a rook called the Lion's Face, at the foot of whicli, inclosing trees, 

 is the above-named dyke.' " — Rev. W. W. Spicer, in Phytol. iv. 600. " I 

 am not acquainted with Gymnogramma leptophylla ; but if it resemble anj' 

 of the forms of Polypodium alpestre, I should give the lady who thought 

 she found the former at Braemar credit for havmg gathered it in the corrie 

 of Loohna-gar, or some such place, and confounded it with small Athyrium 

 Filix-fcemina, which grows in the place she has pointed out, along with Cys- 

 topteris fragilis and a few other commoner ferns. Careful investigation of 

 her locality for it did not, however, turn up a single specimen of Gymno- 

 gramma." — Mr. Backhouse, in Phytol. iv 7lf). The specimen in question 

 has been most obligingly placed in my hands, and is certainly the plant 

 which I understand as Crymnogramma leptophylla. Of the veracity of the 

 finder no question can be raised ; but the accidentd transposition of labels 

 is so frequent, that the possibility of such an occurrence, and the absence 

 of further evidence, must be my excuse for inclosing the record in paren- 

 theses). 



Jersey. — In the winter of 1852-3, 1 learned from my friend, Mr. Henry 

 Hagen, that a lady had discovered Gymnogramma leptophylla in one of the 

 Channel Islands ; but knowing how numerous were the mistakes in nam- 

 ing ferns, and believing that the specimens had not been examined by a 

 practised botanist, I reserved the intelligence until my friend kmdly procured 

 me a specimen (fig. b), and finding there was no error in name, I announced 

 the fact in the ' Phytologist ' for March, 18.53. (See Phytol. iv. 911). 



During May, 1853, I received a number of communications on this sub- 

 ject, which were thus summed up in the ' Phytologist ' : — " Numerous 



