414 BRITISH FERNS 



LXXVI 



Proliferum Wollaston (IVoll.) 



Mr. G. B. Wollaston. S. Devon. 1852. 



2 ft. 6 in. 



Sy/l. ACUTILOBUM PROLIFERUM (ll'oll.) 



From the original plant. "This is a true acutilobe, frond 

 elongate, deltoid, tripinnate, — in its best character has only one or 

 two pairs of bulbillae seated in the axils of the lowest pair of pinnae ; 

 pinnules acute." — Note by Mr. Wollaston. 



No British Fern exceeds this in beauty, and probably none has 

 figured so prominently in exhibitions ; it is not to be wondered at 

 therefore that it should have taken more than one person to find it. 

 With reference to its discovery Mr. Wollaston relates that himself 

 and the late Rev. Wm. Gardiner, — then Curate of Ottery St. 

 Mary, — during a ramble in that neighbourhood, being brought 

 suddenly by a bend in the lane face to face with it, were at the 

 same instant (it was then a large plant and in true character) 

 transfixed with astonishment, etc. Mr. Wollaston was, however, 

 the first to recover his presence of mind, and the plant will ever 

 deservedly bear the name of the first of British Fern-hunters.* 



* The name, proliferum was first given to a plant found in S. Devon more 

 than thirty years ago by Choule, one of the Kew Gardeners. Mr. Wollaston 

 states that an impression prevailed at one time that it was exotic — probably 

 from its difference to other then known British Ferns. Dr. Allchin writes that 

 in 1852 this plant was growing' in the outdoor fernery at Kew, marked P. a. 

 discretum, and afterwards angustatum, and it was from spores of this that he 

 raised the very beautiful proliferous form that bears his name, which was much 

 more proliferous than the original and perhaps more so than any that has since 

 been found or raised. Choule's plant being the first to show its character was 

 named by Mr. Moore proliferum. Subsequently other proliferous forms were 

 found and named proliferum — Wollastoni, Footii, Crawfordice , HoleaiKz, 

 Henleycz, Moulei, etc. As all these partook more or less the finely-cut character 

 of the original proliferuui , and no other proliferous form was then known, it was 



