216 



LADY FEBN. 



below, pinnate: pinnte scarcely ascending, approximate, flat- 

 tened, pinnate, subpinnate, or sometimes only pinnatifid (see 

 figure c, page 313), the lower ones very short : pinnules blunt, 

 serrated, not divided or lobed, sessUe, adnate or decurrent, al- 

 ways connected by the wing of the midrib : clusters of capsules 

 in a series on each side of the midrib of the pinnule, and very 

 near it. 



Common in damp and very dense woods. Dr. Dickie is said 

 to have found it in a sea-cave at Aberdeen, and I am indebted 

 to Mr. Moore for the sight of a frond labelled as from this 

 locality. 



A fourth form has been supposed to exist in England. 



Asplenium Filix-foemina, fi., latifolium. Hook, and Am. 574. 



Athyrium Filix-fcemina, ^., latifolium, Bab. 413. 



Athyrium Filix-foemina, /3., latifolium, Houhton and Moore, 

 Gard. Mag. of Bot. iii. 262 ; Moore, 139. 



Athyrium ovatum, Newni. Phytol. iv. 368 (excl. syn.), Phytol. 

 App. xii. (excl. syn.) 



The two individual roots to which these synonymes belong 

 have obtained much attention from English botanists : my own 

 opinion respecting them has undergone a complete change. 

 The plants are diseased and malformed, and consequently are 

 not to be treated as having a botanical existence. Mr. Hort 

 was the first to point out the true state of the case ; but Mr. 

 "Watson's account, as cited below, is more concise and suffi- 

 ciently explicit. Mr. WoUaston believed he had seen the plant 

 frequently in the Lake district, and hence I concluded that the 

 malformation very observable in the specimens I possess, was 

 confined to those specimens ; whereas I now believe that dis- 

 ease occasions, and malformation constitutes, the diagnostics 



