LOPHODIDM CALLIPTEEIS. 171 



species was certainly never mistaken for A. cristatum by the 

 writer of ' English Botany,' p. 1949, but Mi\ Sowerby was de- 

 ceived by a wrong specimen sent him from the Isle of Wight, 

 which he supposed of course to be correct, and from which he 

 drew the figure. The blunder was set right in v. 30, p. 2125, 

 of the same work." — Eng. Flor. iv. 276. To this it may be 

 added that the "blunder," or rather the propensity to make the 

 present species out of Filix-mas, was very prevalent, if not uni- 

 versal, at the date in question. 



The name of "cristatum" was evidently intended by Linneus 

 to comprise the present and several other plants here treated 

 as species. Hudson, Berkenhout, Withering, and Bolton adopt 

 from Linneus the name of Polypodium cristatum, but appa- 

 rently without any knowledge of the present specifes. Ehrhart 

 was the first to describe our plant as a distinct and separate 

 species, under the elegant name of Callipteris, which name 

 has been adopted by Lamarck and DeCandoUe, perhaps the 

 best nomenclaturists of the continent, as well as by Hofi^mann, 

 in his ' Deutschlands Flora.' 



So great confusion exists in the application of the terms 

 " cristatum " and " crested fern," that I think it better to drop 

 both of them. See an admirable observation at page 149 of 

 this work, quoted from Mr. Babington, and applied by that 

 eminent botanist to a precisely analogous case. 



This fern is of common occurrence upon the continent of 

 Europe, and throughout the United States of North America. 

 I have received American specimens from Mr. Oakes, Mr. Lea, 

 and Mr. Boott, the latter accompanied by living plants, which 

 continued growing for two years at Leominster, side by side 

 with others from Lynn ; and although Mr. Lea, of Cincinnati, 

 informs me that Dr. Torrey considers the American plant dis- 

 tinct, I must confess that the two appear to me to be identical. 



This is one of our most local ferns, occurring only on boggy 

 heaths, and confined, as far as Great Britain is concerned, to 

 four English counties. I have received, through the kindness 

 of my friends, fronds with this name from two Scotch, four Irish, 



