1879. } Botany. 187 
lication of my paper I have endeavored to learn the exact date of 
the publication of. Braun’s name, with the following result : 
The record, so far as it appears from all accessible authorities, 
is, that in 1834 Braun first discovered in a mountain valley near 
a fern, growing with Aspidium filix-mas and 
A, spinulosum (dilatatum) that he at first referred to Aspedium rigi- 
dum as a variety of that species (var. remotum), but which he 
afterward designated as a species, under the name of Aspidium 
remotum. Later he appears to have regarded it as a hybrid form 
between A. filix-mas and A. spinulosum, but finally, according to 
Milde (Fil. Eur. et Atl., 1867), considered it a form of Aspidium 
Jilix-mas. 
Braun, however, does not appear to have published any descrip- 
tion, and unless, as Mr. Watson suggests, he may have given the 
name previously in some catalogue of the Lipsic Garden, the 
name Aspidium remotum does not appear until about 1850, when 
it occurs for the first time in “ Verjiingung,” Freiburg, 1849-50. 
n the other hand, Tuckerman’s name and description was 
published in Hovey’s Magazine for 1843, which entitles it to the 
right of priority, and justifies my retaining it on stronger grounds 
than those given in my paper on A. spinulosum. 
The question of identity, however, still remains in doubt. The 
two ferns have generally been regarded as identical, by English 
authors, but Milde held the opinion (Nova Acta, 1858) that A. 
remotum had nothing whatever in common with A. ġoottii, and as 
his opinion was based ona careful study of the anatomy of the 
two plants, it is entitled to the very highest consideration. 
In the face of the opinion of so careful and thorough an in- 
vestigator as Milde, it is extremely unsafe for any one to hazard 
an opposite opinion, without a most careful and searching investi- 
gation, conducted on the same principles as those made by that 
eminent cryptogamic botanist; but 1 cannot forbear expressing 
the opinion that some of the external characters pointed out by 
Milde as separating the two ferns, are not altogether reliable, as, 
for example, the comparative length of the stipe, the chaffiness, 
or stoutness of the rachis, and the degree of pinnation in the 
frond, all of which characters certainly vary greatly in different 
Specimens of A. ġoottii. 
The difference, however, pointed out in the number of fibre- 
bundles in the stipe of A. remotum (7) as compared with the simi- 
lar structure of the stipes in A. spinulosum and its forms (5 fibre- 
bundles) is a most important one, and one not to be lightly over- 
looked. 
According to Milde, also, the indusium in A. remotum is with- 
out glands, whereas in A. doo/tii the indusium is finely glandular. 
But as these glands frequently disappear early, and are not always 
present after the indusium contracts, we cannot tell how much 
_ Importance to attach to Milde’s statement, without knowing ex- 
