LOPHODIUM RIGIDUM. 177 



specimen, although very small and in a wretched state, has no 

 character that contravenes such a conclusion, while the remark- 

 able involucres (some of which are still in good ]3reservation, 

 and closely agree with that figured at a on page 175), and the 

 toothed but scarcely mucronate divisions of the pinnules, are 

 rather in favour of its being a dwarf individual of that species. 

 Hudson, in his first edition, quotes the description by Linneus 

 in the ' Species Plantarum,' and gives as its only habitat " the 

 moist fissures of rocks near Keswick, in the county of West- 

 moreland," (Fl. Aug. 388). Thus far aU the evidence appears 

 in favour of the supposition that the Lophodium rigidum of 

 the present work is the Polypodium fragrans of both authors : 

 and it may be remarked, in allusion to the small size which is 

 insisted on by Linneus and by Amman, and is observable also 

 in the Linnean specimen, that the average height of this fern 

 on the continent is nine or twelve inches, and that Sadler gives 

 its height in Hungary as "six inches to a foot." We must now 

 place the subject in another light. In his 'Mantissa,' a work 

 of the highest authority, we find Linneus giving a second de- 

 scription of Polypodium fragrans, from a French specimen, and 

 totally different from that in his ' Species Plantarum.' It is as 

 follows : — " Fronds bipinnate, pinnae ovate sublobate obtuse, 

 beneath naked, the margin reflexed, and the fructification mar- 

 ginal," (Mant. ii. 307). In this description, it appears to me 

 that the obtuse pinnae (evidently pinnules) naked beneath, with 

 reflexed margins and marginal fructification, are the characters 

 of Lastrea montana : few botanists have gathered that plant 

 without observing that the margins of the pinnules, if not ori- 

 ginally reflexed, almost immediately become so. Hudson, in 

 his second edition, gives this second description as his character 

 of the plant, (Fl. Ang. ii. 457, ed. 2) ; so that we are left in the 

 pleasing belief that in the first instance both authors described 

 L. rigidum, in the second, L. montana. Abler botanists must 

 hereafter decide what course is to be adopted in the nomen- 

 clature ; for the present, I adhere to that I have previous^ 

 employed. It may also be mentioned, that the present plant 

 appears to me to be the Polypodium fragrans of Villars's ' His- 

 toire des Plantes de Dauphin6,' (iii. 843). 



2 A 



