330 BRITISH FERNS 



XXXIV 



Digitata Mrs. Hodgson (Jones) 

 Mrs. J. K. Hodgson, Ulverstone. Westmoreland. (Raised) 1875. 



1 ft. 9 in. 



It is clearly to the credit of this variety, that with such strong 

 natural temptation to break out into extravagance — as is evident 

 from the conduct of its pinna? — the plant itself should never have 

 lost its head — for the apex of the frond shows no signs of cresting 

 or even of furcation. Mrs. Hodgson writes : "When found, it 

 did not show any digitate character, only a few of the pinnae were 

 just bifid — but it was very young, only about eight inches high ; it 

 has gone on improving, but I don't think it has ever had a frond 

 divided at the apex ; I found it in Langdale." 



Mr. Barnes includes under the name polydactyla the variety 

 found nearly twenty years ago by Mr. Clarke, of the Glasgow Botanic 

 Gardens, and long known in the trade as cristata ; this, like poly- 

 dactylous forms generally, is crested at the apex ; also cristata 

 Clowes, found by J. Huddart, long ago, near Windermere. 



