LOPHODIUM MULTIFLORUM. 149 



painstaking investigations. Be this as it may, I hope to find 

 botanists willing to do honour to Roth's admirable description 

 by adopting his name ; for of a truth we may exclaim with him, 

 — "Maximte sane et fer6 insuperabiles in determinatione hujus 

 filicis difficultates." A volume might be filled in an attempt to 

 unravel its synonymy ; and it seems most advisable to adopt, 

 without discussion, the only name accompanied by a descrip- 

 tion that is really intelligible. I quite agree with Mr. Babing- 

 ton's remark on another name similarly circumstanced to those 

 I have mentioned : that judicious botanist observes, — "As the 

 name has been employed to designate each of them, by one or 

 more authors, it seems desirable to allow it to fall out of use, 

 for its retention only tends to cause confusion." — Phytol. iv. 

 1160. 



This fern is so imperfectly known that I am unable to give 

 its European range, but believe it to be common on the conti- 

 nent. I have received no corresponding form from my friends 

 in the United States. 



I believe this fern to be universally distributed throughout 

 the British Islands : it grows luxuriantly in moist woods, de- 

 lighting in vegetable mould, and attains a great size on warm, 

 sheltered hedge-banks, particularly if accompanied by a ditch. 

 I am indebted to Mr. Buxton Shillitoe for an enormous caudex 

 of this plant, standing in an erect position nearly a foot above 

 the surface of the soil, and measuring more than a foot in cir- 

 cumference. 



The radicles are numerous, black, wiry, and very tenacious : 

 the caudex is large and tufted ; I have never found it either 

 horizontally elongated or branched. The crown of the caudex 

 is densely clothed with large, long, dark brown scales. The 

 fronds rise early in May, and continue to come up until Mid- 

 summer ; they are symmetrically arranged round the crown, 



