204 



FLEXILE LADY FEliX. 



€\imttm, 



G-enus. — Pseudathyeium. (See page 200). 



Species. — Flexile. Catidex massive, its position erect, its 

 crown broad, gibbous, scaly : fronds ranged somewhat symme- 

 trically around the crown, estipitate, linear-lanceolate : pinn£e 

 short, distant, deflexed, blunt, pinnate : pinnules sessile, obo- 

 vate, obtuse, serrate : lateral veins unbranched, each bearing a 

 circular cluster of capsules about half-way between its base and 

 apex : involucre none. 



Pseudathyrium flexile, Newm. Phytol. iv. 974. 



The earliest notice of this fern is in the Jime number of the 

 ' Phytologist ' for 1852, where it is incidentally mentioned by 

 Mr. Westcombe, when ^^liting of P. alpestre. He uses these 

 expressions : — " When small, and in fructification, it [aljDestre] 

 looks more like a Cystopteris."- — Phytol. iv. 652. Three months 

 subsequently, Mr. Backhouse, also writing of P. alpestre, ob- 

 serves : — " A remarkable variety, with deflexed jDuinse.was only 

 met with in one place in Glen Prosen." — Id. 715. Both com- 

 munications appear at page 202 of this work, the passages re- 

 referring to flexile being there printed in Italics. The matter 

 stood thus until the 18th of May, 1853, when I received for 

 examination the entire collection of tliese ferns made bj' Mr. 

 Backhouse and his son, and a more splendid series need not 

 be desired. I at once perceived that the supposed "variety" 

 from G-len Prosen was a species, and, sitting down, I penned 

 characters of the two species, purposely contrasting them. 

 These were published in the ' Phj'tologist ' for June, 1853. 

 (See Phytol. iv. 974). 



On the 24th of May I exhibited these ferns at the Anniver- 

 sary Meeting of the Linnean Society, when they were inspiected 

 by the President, Robert Brown, and by several other leading 

 botanists ; and neither then, nor on any subsequent occasion, 

 has any botanist who has seen flexile suggested to me the pos- 

 sibility of including it in any previously described species. Mr. 



