A LIST OF THE FERNS OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 

 OF YORK. 



By Robebt Miller Christy. 



It is hardly to be expected that I should be able to add much that is 

 new to the already large amount of available information as to the 

 Botany of Yorkshire. The subject has been so ably treated by 

 Mr. Baines in his ^' Flora of Yorkshire," and by Mr. J. Gr. Baker in 

 his " North Yorkshire," that comparatively little remains to be done ; 

 but, having collected for several years in the district immediately 

 surrounding the city of York, I hope to be able to give a few inter- 

 esting new facts and observations on the ferns of that neighbourhood. 

 In the following list I have followed the nomenclature and arrange- 

 ment employed in the London Catalogue (7th ed.), and have included 

 most of those species which are often spoken of as " fern-allies." The 

 district which I have considered to be the neighbourhood of York 

 may be briefly described as a circular tract having the city as its 

 centre and a radius of ten or fifteen miles, although it will be seen 

 that this boundary line is a purely arbitrary and non-natural one. It 

 includes the whole of Mr. Baker's Drainage District, No. vi. (Nidd 

 and Wharfe\ part of No. iii. (Derwent), most of No. i. (Ouse and 

 Foss), as well as certain portions of the E. and W. Ridings lying 

 immediately to the south of the Ainsty of York. Nevertheless the 

 majority of the species enumerated may be found within six or seven 

 miles, at most, of the city. For remarks on the geological peculiarities 

 of the district I may refer the reader to a very pertinent note by my 

 friend Mr. J. Edmund Clark, attached to my paper on ''The Land 

 and Fresh-water Shells of the neighbourhood of York " (Zoologist ^ 

 1881, p. 175). My own observations have provided me with most of 

 the facts given herein, but I have to thank the late Mr. Sylvanus 

 Thompson, Mr. James Backhouse, Mr. J. E. Clark, Mr. B. B. Le Tall, 

 and other friends, for advice and assistance. The list has also profited 

 by the exertions of the botanists belonging to the York Friends' School 

 Natural History Society in Bootham, whose results for thirty or forty 

 years past are recorded in the MS. pages of the " Bootham Observer." 



Our chief localities for ferns are the city walls and the extensive 

 pine-woods to the north of the city, about Stockton and Sandburn, 

 but especially those magnificent tracts of virgin moor and bog which 

 are to be found in the vicinity, such as Strensall, Towthorp, and 

 Riccall Commons, Tillmire, Knavesmire, Clifton Ings, Bishopthorpe 

 N.S,, Vol. viii. July, 1883. 



