72 bay's woodsia, 



Acrostichum Ilveiise, Huds. Fl. Aug. 451 ; Bolt. Fil. Brit. 

 14, t. 9. 



Polypodium arvonicum, With. Arr. 774. 



Woodsia Ilvensis, B. Br. Trans. Linn. Soc. xi. 173 ; Sm. E. 

 F. iv. 323, E. B. S. 2616; Newtn. N. A. 13, F. 137; 

 Hook, and Am. 567 ; Bah. 409, ad partem. 



Woodsia Raiana, Neivm. F. 140, a name suggested in 1844. 



The figures of this fern in Bolton's ' Filices ' (tab. 9), ' Eng- 

 lish Botany' (Suppl. 2616), and Francis's ' Analysis ' (pi. i. f. 

 6 A), give but a very imperfect idea of the plant _; the latter is 

 particularly unlike. Of the continental figures I entertain so 

 much doubt as to their representing our British plant, that I 

 forbear quoting them. The doubt, of course, is equally appli- 

 cable to nomenclature, and I name the species as Woodsia 

 Ilvensis of our British authors, without attempting to prove it 

 the Acrostichum Ilvense of Linneus. I have no doubt that it 

 is the " Filix alpina, Pedicularis rubrse foliis subtus villosis " 

 of Ray, although this description is referred by Sir J. E. Smith 

 to the plant I have next described. I am extremely gratified 

 to find that Mr. Wilson entertains a similar opinion. In a 

 letter received from that gentleman, he says, " I cannot helx3 

 thinking that the synonym in Ray's ' Synopsis,' usually applied 

 to the other species, belongs to this fern, notwithstanding that 

 in the locality pointed out by Ray, on Snowdon, I find only W. 

 hyperborea, which I have never seen there ' foliis sex circiter 

 digitis longis,' and which less resembles Pedicularis." Ray's 

 description appears to me to lay stress upon all the points in 

 which the present plant chiefly differs from the next. There 

 can be scarcely a doubt that the plant now under consideration 

 is the Polypodium arvonicum of Withering, whose description 

 — " Leafits spear-shaped, wing-cleft, hairy underneath ; stem 

 hairy" (Arr. iii. 774), — is peculiarly apt. I am mdebted to the 

 kindness of Dr. Robert Brown, for specimens gathered by him- 

 self in the North of Europe, of the true Acrostichum Ilvense 

 of Linneus, one of which is figured on the opposite page ; 

 and these, while agreeing exactly with the authentic Linnean 

 specimen in the herbarium of the Linnean Society, differ so 



