412 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



it has by several authorities been elevated to the rank of species, for its 

 consistency has never been noted anywhere to have assumed under cultivation 

 the form of A. aculcatum. A. (P.) annulare, or as it is commonly called, 

 the " Soft Prickly Shield Fern," which, from a botanical point of view, 

 should be considered as only a form of the Prickly Shield Fern, has produced 

 numberless varieties, all of which also help to represent with great advantage 

 the genus Aspidium in these Islands. 



The common Prickly Shield Fern is one of the oldest known British 

 kinds, for mention of it is made by Johnson in his edition of Gerard's 

 " Herbal," in which not only the name of the discoverer of this Fern, but 

 even the very day of its discovery, is given. There it is described as "Filix 

 mas non ramosap innulis latis, auriculatis, spinosis" (Male Fern, not branched, 

 with broad ears and prickly leaflets). To the above description Johnson 

 adds : " This I take to be Filix mas acuhata major Bauhini (Bauhin's larger 

 Prickly Male Fern), neither have I seen any figure resembling this plant : 

 it groweth abundantly on the shadowy, moist rocks by Maple Durham, near 

 Petersfield, in Hampshire. John Goodyer, July 4th, 1633." 



There is very little doubt that the Soft Prickly Shield Fern, which, 

 though evidently only a form of the preceding one, is by the cultivator 

 considered sufficiently distinct to rank as a species, was known to Ray in 

 1696, when he published the second edition of his "Synopsis Stirpium 

 Britannicarum." After particularising the Fern previously described as 

 A. (P.) aculeatum, Ray next mentions " Filix Lonchitidi affinis" (Fern 

 related to Lonchitis), adding : " Under this title was sent to me, by Mr. Lloyd, 

 a plant like to the preceding, but with rounder leafits, and covered all over 

 with longer scales. He collected it in the mountain parts of Wales." 



The popular Holly Fern, Aspidium (P.) Lonchitis, is another Fern which 

 for generations past has been known as a representative of the genus 

 Aspidium. in England. We find that it was unknown as a British plant 

 when, in 1670, Ray published his " Catalogus Plantarum Anglias," or when 

 his " Historia Plantarum" was issued from the press, in 1686; but it had 

 been discovered by Mr. Lloyd between the latter year and 1696, when Ray 

 mentions it in the second edition of his " Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarum." 

 He then adopted the name of Lonchitis aspera major (larger, rough Spleen- 

 wort, with indented leaves). He says : "It issues from clefts in the rocks on 



