130 THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



and abundant sori (spore masses) are disposed irregularly in rows on each 

 side of the mid vein and eventually become confluent (Fig. 40). — Hooker, 

 Species Filiciim, iv., p. 249. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, iii., p. 189. 

 Lowe, Ferns British and Exotic, ii., t. 34. 



P. (Phegopteris) Dryopteris — Phe-gop'-ter-is ; Dry-op'-ter-is (Oak Fern, 

 from the Greek Drus, an Oak, and Pteris, a Fern), Linnaeus. 



This exceedingly pretty, dwarf-growing, hardy species has a most extensive 

 range of habitat. According to Beddome, it is abundant in Northern India, 

 where it occurs at elevations varying between 5000ft. and 8000ft. ; also in 

 the Western Himalayas, in Manchuria, Japan, &c. Eaton, in " Ferns of 

 North America" (vol. i., p. 158), states that it is found growing plentifully 

 in open,' rocky woods in Canada and in the Northern United States, extending 

 to the mountains of Colorado, Oregon, Unalaska, Labrador, and perhaps 

 Greenland. He adds that it is also found throughout Northern Europe and 

 Asia, from the British Isles to Kamtschatka, and gives as its southern limit 

 in Europe the Pyrenees and Northern Italy, and, in Asia, Thibet and 

 Cashmere. 



P. Dryopteris, though not known to Ray in 1670, when he published 

 his " Catalogus Plantar um Anglia3," in which no mention of it is made, was, 

 however, discovered by him near Tintern Abbey before 1685, when he 

 published his " Historia Plantarum," and when the first notice of its being 

 certainly a British Fern is recorded. It is found particularly on shady 

 mountain-sides in Ireland, on the Mourne and Turk Mountains, Mam Turk, 

 at Killarney, Connemara, Tullamore Park, and other mountain districts. It 

 is common in some parts of Scotland, such as Aberdeenshire, Forfarshire, and 

 Perthshire, and is also found, although less abundantly, on the banks of the 

 White Adder, between the Retreat and the Elm Cottage, Berwickshire ; at 

 Moray, in Ross-shire ; at Hawthorndean, near Edinburgh ; and at Langholm 

 and Broomholm, in Eskdale. Notwithstanding the yearly depredations of 

 tourists and Fern hawkers in general, this Fern is still plentiful in some 

 parts of North Wales, and is also frequently met with at Craig Breidden, 

 Montgomeryshire ; near Tintern Abbey, near Llangollen, on a slate rock ; and 

 in Carnarvonshire. In England it is to the present day found at Richmond 

 and about North Bierley, in Yorkshire ; in Cornbury Quarry, in Oxfordshire ; 



