190 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



a range of habitat extending from Iceland and Lapland to Japan, Etruria, 

 and Greece, and from Greenland southward to the United States of America, 

 where, according to Eaton, it is found in damp woods and on hillsides, being 

 commonest in the mountainous parts of New England and the Middle States. 

 Eaton, in his exhaustive work, " Ferns of North America " (vol. ii., p. 218), 

 states that its range in America extends to Newfoundland, Labrador, and 

 Greenland in the east, and to the Saskatchewan, Sitka, Alaska, and Unalaska 

 in the north-west, but that it is not known in the United States west of the 

 one hundredth meridian. Correvon also states ("Fougeres rustiques," p. 147) 

 that it is found in all parts of Europe ; but nowhere is it so abundant as in 

 the United Kingdom. 



We find the first record of P. Phegopteris as a British plant in Morrison 

 and Bobart's " Historia Plantarum Oxoniensis," published in 1680, and it is 

 stated by Bobart that it had been found in the Northern parts of England. 

 It is also described by Dillenius, in the third edition of Ray's " Synopsis 

 Stirpum Britannicarum," published in 1724, where it is given as "the smaller 

 British Fern with paler stems and lower wings looking downwards." It is 

 found in Wales, near Llanberis ; at Capel Curig, North Wales, and in 

 Carnarvonshire ; also close to the Powerscourt Waterfall, and at the Waterfall 

 above Lough Eske, County Donegal, in Ireland. In Scotland it occurs on 

 Ben Lomond, at Rubislaw, and at Jedburgh ; at Campsie, near Glasgow ; 

 on the Grampians, in Aberdeenshire ; on Red Caird Hill, in Inverness -shire ; 

 in Forfarshire, Sutherland, and other parts of the Highlands. But it is in 

 England that the habitats of this beautiful Fern are most numerous and most 

 varied. Thus we have had it gathered at Lidford Fall and Beckey Fall, 

 Dartmoor, Devonshire, as well as on rocks above Langley Ford, at the base 

 of the Cheviot Hills ; at Prestwich Clough and Boghart Clough, in 

 Lancashire ; at Egerton Moss, near Bolton ; at Settle, in Yorkshire ; near 

 Keswick, in Cumberland ; and at Cawsey Dean, Durham. 



It is difficult to understand why this Fern should bear a popular 

 appellation so singularly inapplicable, for the name has no reference to either 

 its shape or its haunts, as it is more rarely found in woods than on mountain- 

 sides, where, according to Eaton, in America as well as in Europe, the root- 

 stock creeps just beneath the surface of the ground, or in the crevices of 

 mossy rocks, and throws up fronds about tin. apart. These fronds are Gin. 



