BOTANY 



Council resolved on 20 March, 1902, ' that it is desirable that there 

 should be added to the existing bye-laws a bye-law prohibiting the up- 

 rooting of ferns and flowering plants or shrubs on land within the 

 County Council area to which the public have access ; and that the 

 subject be referred to the General Purposes Committee for consideration 

 and report.' In accordance with this resolution the committee commu- 

 nicated the wishes of the council to the Home Secretary, whose approval 

 to the proposed bye-law would be necessary. The reply from the Home 

 Office contained the following remarks : — 



' If it is confined to cases where serious damage and disfigurement is caused in 

 public highways, etc., there may not be much difficulty from the legal point of view 

 in framing the bye-law, but the Secretary of State would not be willing to allow a 

 bye-law which would be likely to injure unsuspecting poor people residing in the 

 district, or to lead to the punishment of young children. Possibly however the bye- 

 law could be restricted in its operations so as not to involve any danger of this, e.g. 

 by confining it to particular places to be indicated by notices. If however it is pro- 

 posed that the bye-law should only apply to rare ferns or plants, the difficulties in 

 framing it are likely to be greater. In any event a bye-law which would prevent 

 any person from taking one or two common ferns or plants from the roadside for his 

 own use, would in the opinion of the Secretary of State be inadmissible.' 



Having regard to this view on the part of the Secretary of State 

 the committee did not recommend the council to take any further action 

 in the matter. 



* Few of us accustomed to wander on our moors and take an interest in its flora 

 can have failed to notice the diminution, it may be said destruction, of some of our 

 rarer ferns. Osmunda regalis has been utterly eradicated from near Cornwood where 

 it once grew with fronds six feet high ; Lastrea Fcenisecii has been reduced to a few 

 plants at Shaugh ; the two Hymenophylla, once so abundant in the valley of the Cad, 

 and on the rocks near the Meavy, can now scarcely be met with, and the little oak 

 fern, always extremely rare, is entirely gone. Asplenium lanceolatum, Ophioglossum, and 

 the mounwort, still linger on ; the difficulty in finding them has conduced to their 

 preservation, and it is to be hoped that those who are acquainted with their habitats 

 will hesitate to divulge their localities to others than those who will carefully protect 

 them. A few years since might be seen in the streets of Plymouth itinerant fern 

 collectors who were exposing for sale large mats of Hymenophyllum, torn ruthlessly 

 from their rocks, the scars on which remain in the Meavy and Cornwood valleys to the 

 present day' (Francis Brent m^owth Perambulation of Dartmoor \\i()G],ed..\\\.^.2S^)' 



The filmy ferns {Hymenophyllum tunbridgense and H. unilaterale) are 

 met with among mosses in damp and shady places in the Barnstaple, 

 Torquay, Plymouth and Tavistock districts, but they are rather rare and 

 local ; the former was recorded by Hudson in 1778 as occurring on 

 Dartmoor, but it is diminishing in consequence of the rapacity of col- 

 lectors. 



The maiden-hair fern [Adiantum Capillus-Veneris) was formerly 

 plentiful on the coast of south Devon and occurred in several stations 

 about Ilfracombe, Combmartin, etc., in north Devon ; but it has been 

 wantonly plundered and is now very scarce and is mostly restricted to 

 spots difficult of access ; on 14 May 1902, at Ilfracombe, a boy of 

 thirteen years of age in attempting to gather this fern fell down the 

 Hillsborough cliff and died in consequence of the injury sustained. 

 I 97 13 



