seen, is taken from a specimen collected by the late Miss Hutchins 
in Bantry Bay. In that favoured locality and in other situations 
on the west coast of Ireland, and also at Larne near Belfast on 
the north-east coast, very luxuriant specimens are often met with 
in company with others as narrow and bushy as are commonly 
seen on the south coast of England. It varies indeed greatly in 
size, the frond bemg sometimes scarcely a le in width, some- 
times nearly half an inch; but its admirable distinguishing cha- 
racter, that of being repeatedly proliferous from the midrib, is in- 
variable. ‘The only British plant with which a young botanist 
can confound it, is the somewhat rarer D. ruscifolia, from which 
its thinner substance, brighter colour, proportionally narrower 
leaves, and the lanceolate, not Imear-oblong, form of the leaflets 
distinguish it. 
The first notice of the species was by Dr. Solander who named 
a specimen in the Banksian Herbarium, the native country of 
which was unknown. Mr. Wigg having about the year 1794 
found it on the Norfolk shores, it was published in the ‘ Linnzean 
Transactions, as a British plant, and is now well known to occur 
in tolerable plenty on most of the European coasts. I have not 
seen any American specimens, nor is it found in the Southern 
Ocean. <A species does indeed occur on several of the Antarctic 
Coasts, as at Auckland Island, Kerguelen’s Land, Cape Horn and 
the Falkland Islands, which agrees in very many respects with D. 
Hypoglossum, having the same general habit, the same lanceolate 
leaves and the same proliferous growth ; but in it (D. crassinervia, 
Mont) the midribs of the leaves are usually very much broader 
and thicker. I fear, however, that this character is not a very 
constant one, some Falkland Island individuals having a much 
less broad midrib than others, or than the original Auckland spe- 
cimens, and I am almost disposed to regard the Southern plant 
as more properly a variety of the present species than specifically 
distinct. | 
Fig. 1. Detesspria HypoGiossum :—watural size. 2. Leaflet with tetraspores. 
3. Section of ditto, showing part of the sorus. 4. Tetraspores separated. 
5. Leaflet, with tubercles. 6. Section of ditto. 7. Tubercle removed. 
8. Seeds from tubercle :—all magnified. ; 
