WOODSIA ALPINA. 81 



by which also the whole under side of the leaf, quite to the mar- 

 gin, is thickly covered. The specimen above described is very 

 exactly figured on plate 42, and is a plant so perfectly distinct 

 from the Acrostichum Ilvense, in its usual state, that it seems 

 to me unreasonable to suppose them both of the same species. 

 The Acrostichum Ilvense, described in the former part of this 

 work (page 14), and accurately figured on plate 9, was brought 

 from Snowdon. Oeder, in ' Flora Danica,' has given an excel- 

 lent figure of the same plant (tab. 391), and the figure in Pluk. 

 Phyt. tab. 179, fig. 4 (which is cited by Linneus in Flo. Suecica, 

 ed. 2, No. 938), agrees pretty aptly with both Oeder's and my 

 own. But all are very different from the Acrostichum alpi- 

 num above described. The specimen figured on plate 42 was 

 brought from Scotland, but the plant is also a native of South 

 Britain, for in a volume of dried i)lants, collected by the late 

 Mr. Knowlton, I have seen specimens of the same plant with 

 this note in his own handwriting : — ' From the mountains of 

 Wales.' From these and some other circumstances I am in- 

 duced to thiak that two species of British ferns have been con- 

 founded together under the name of Acrostichum Ilvense, and 

 I believe that future observation will confirm the truth now 

 discovered." 



I have quoted the description entire, in order to remove any 

 doubt as to the plant now under consideration being identical 

 with that described by Bolton, although the testimony of Brown 

 and Smith, who cite Bolton's name as a synonyme, might per- 

 haps be deemed sufficient to decide this branch of the inquiry. 

 We then arrive at the question of date. Bolton's work on the 

 British ferns, although paged continuously, was- published in 

 two parts, the first at Leeds, in 1785, the second at Hudders- 

 field, in 17 90; Acrostichum alpinum occurs in the second part. 

 The name of Acrostichum hyperboreum was published by Lil- 

 jeblad in the Stockholm ' Transactions ' for 1793, and is the 

 authority quoted by Smith and others. Liljeblad's descrip- 

 tion may possibly be dated one year earlier : but admitting this, 

 we rnust still give Bolton a priority of two years, quite suffi- 

 cient to decide a question of nomenclature : yet it is somewhat 

 remarkable that Lamarck and Decandolle are the only authors 

 who have adopted the specific name of alpinum. 



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