182 



The Natuealist, 



Knavesmire, Overton, Skelton, Sandburn, and Buttercrambe Woods^ 

 &c. It is generally a wood-loving species, but I have sometimes seen 

 it on open commons or banks, as at Wiggington and Haxby (road- 

 sides), Tillmire and Strensall. At the first-named place I have found 

 a strange plant bearing fronds apparently intermediate between this 

 species and the last, having the general appearance of the former but 

 the scales of the latter, though less darkly striped down the centre 

 than usual. At Castle Howard I have seen quantities of this fern 

 nibbled into small pieces by rabbits. The young fronds rise in the 

 end of April, and are densely covered with scales of a rich brown 

 colour. The bifid variety has occurred not uncommonly at Wiggington, 

 Langwith, and Nova Scotia Plantation, and the var. dumetorum at 

 Langwith (B.B.L.T.) 



NepTirodium TJielypteris. — Mr. Baker says, rare in swampy woods 

 in the low country. Plentiful in Askham Bogs and Terrington Carr, 

 and on Buttercrambe Moor. It formerly grew in Holly Hill Bogs., 

 near Castle Howard." Abundant in several parts of Askham Bog, 

 especially in the Far Wo(xi, where I have found it 4ft. Sin. high, while 

 2ft. is about the average, and so slender a fern is it that it could not 

 even attain this height unless supported by grass or bushes. In spite, 

 however, of the great abundance of this fern, fronds bearing fructific- 

 ation are so extremely rare that, until the last year or two, I could 

 only hear of a single stunted specimen. On September 27th, 1876, I 

 found a plant bearing half-a-dozen very fine fronds, each 3ft. in lengthy 

 and all fructifi_ed. This plant was on a rather dry part and removed 

 from all others. I understand that about September, 1870, some 

 fertile fronds were found on the Bog, and that in Heslington llelds — 

 once a locality for this fern — such fronds were not at all rar.'. The 

 probable reason for rarity of fertile fronds seems to be that this species- 

 having a creeping rhizome and plenty of room to spread, selects this 

 simpler means of increasing, and does not waste its resources in 

 producing spores, as it probably would if its roots were confined. I 

 have seen plants growing on a rockery that produced spores plentifully 

 (vide " Natural History Journal," vol. ii., pp. 89 and 152).. A bifid 

 variety is not rare. 



NepJir odium Oreopteris. — Rather common, Strensall, and WheTdrake 

 Commons, Langwith, Stockton, Sandburn, and Buttercrambe Woods. 

 It is an early fern to die down. On a bank at Strensall, I once got 

 a plant bearing one frond with several tips, and another with the mid- 

 db bifid near the root ; one tip and several pinnae were also bifid. 



