Trichomanes.] FILICES. 361 
this fern literally in baskets full have been carefully searched 
by the writer, without so much as a trace of the plant being 
found. Even so late as 1892, a large box filled with the 
roots and fronds of the T'richomanes was seen by the writer 
being taken round to the different hotels in Killarney by a 
peasant who had come from the neighbourhood of Sneem. 
Failing to find a purchaser for the entire box, for which he 
asked £5, he ultimately disposed of the contents in lots for 
which he only too readily obtained sums varying from 
2s. 6d. to 7s. 6d.; that box, no doubt, represented the 
total destruction of another station, the growth probably 
of ages. While this beautiful fern has been almost exter- 
minated in its more exposed stations, there is little doubt 
that it still occurs thinly scattered over the mountainous 
portion of the county. It exists there chiefly on the under- 
sides of large boulders and damp piled-up rocks, hidden 
away from prying eyes and in some cases safe from anything 
less destructive than a charge of dynamite. 
Although well known as the “ Killarney Fern,” the 
Trichomanes is by no means restricted to Kerry, occurring 
in 13 or 14 of the Irish vice-counties, and on the east coast 
as well as on the west. It is on record also from North 
Wales and from Arran Island on the west coast of Scotland, 
and appears to have grown formerly in Yorkshire. Outside 
the British Isles, it has a very wide distribution, being 
known to occur in West Europe, tropical Africa and America, 
in the Himalayas, Japan and Polynesia, &c. 
[Aprantum Caprtius-Veneris Linn. Maidenhair. On 
Cahir Conree Mountain, near Tralee (W. Andrews) Flor. Hib. 
1836. Sparingly on the Cahir Conree Mountain near Tralee 
(W. Andrews) Newman 1844, p. 85. On the Cahir Conree 
range, at a considerable elevation (W. Andrews) Cyb. 1866. 
This fern occurs at intervals along the west coast of Ireland 
from Donegal in the north to the neighbouring county Clare 
in the south, usually in small quantity but abundantly in 
several localities in the last named county. Its distribution 
also in England, where it occurs sparingly along both the 
south and west coasts as far as the Isle of Man and More- 
cambe Bay, just two degrees north of its reputed Cahir- 
conree station, fully warrants the expectation of its occur- 
rence in Kerry. The fern, however, shows a marked 
calcicole tendency and is nowhere known either in Treland 
or England to ascend much above sea level, so if it really 
exists on the Cahirconree Mountains, a non-caleareous range, 
i 
