274 BRITISH FERNS 



projects downwards and forwards in a plane anterior to the rachis, 

 and both are somewhat contorted— so as to embrace between them 

 the rachis and to give the appearance of a twisted cable running: 

 up the rachis from below upwards." 



Perhaps the most remarkable sport of the cruciate class, and it 

 is remarkable that after an interval of twenty years, precisely the 

 same variety should have been found in another part of Ireland. 

 Mrs. C. Frizell has kindly supplied the following interesting 

 account of the original discovery. "I found it on our own property 

 in a most beautiful reach of the Avonmouth river, which runs from 

 Lough Dan, through this place (Castle Kevin, Co. Wicklow.) It 

 was in the year 1857 ; it grew between two large boulders so fast 

 and with apparently so little soil, that it was with great difficulty 

 my husband removed it. I don't think I ever saw any plant of the 

 Frizellice so perfect as the original ; there were about eight fronds, 

 none of them with those sports and irregularities one has since 

 seen on it. I watched it for two years by the river-side, and it 

 never had any appearance of seed, so we gave it to Mr. Bain, of 

 the College Botanic Gardens, who put it into the hot-house, where 

 it seeded immediately." 



The following account of the second discovery has been supplied 

 by Dr. Moore, of Glasnevin. 



" This variety has been again found this year in the Co. Donegal, 

 near Letterkenny, by Henry Chichester Hart, Esq., son of the 

 Vice-Provost, Trinity College, Dublin, who accompanied the last 

 Arctic Expedition as Naturalist. The two finds were exactly 

 similar in form in every way. A wild frond from Mr. Hart's plant 

 was sent to Mr. Moore, of Chelsea." Mr. Moore, of Chelsea, 

 writing in the Gardener s Chronicle with reference to this frond, 

 says that he has no hesitation in identifying it with Ath. f. f. 

 Frizellice. 



Mr. Hart states that "there were several fronds on the plant, 

 all perfect, and similar to that sent to Chelsea, which was fault- 

 lessly typical." 



Probably no form has been more productive of varieties by seed 

 than Frizellice. Mr. Glover, whose experience in this direction is 



