166 



The Naturalist. 



Next, we are presented with a curious record, the warrant for 

 which I have not been able to clearly ascertain. In Miall and 

 Carrington's W. R. Flora (p. 57) occur the words — ' L. cristata 

 (crested brake-fern), Thorne Moor^ near Doncaster, Baines V This 

 query I can only assume to have been put to shew some doubt as to 

 who really was the authority for some rumour which reached them as 

 to the fern growing there. Whether they doubted the correctness of 

 the station, or the species, I have no means of knowing ; but 

 probably the latter, for the authors give ' Lastraa cristata ' amongst 

 a number of other names (p. 93) probably erroneous. Could a 

 forgetting of the name of the communicator have inspired a doubt, 

 and so led to the mark of interrogation ? It is worth remembering, as 

 to this, that the Flora was issued in 1862 — a date seven years sub- 

 sequent to that in which Mr. Casson's specimen in Herb. Backhouse 

 was gathered — yet none of the names (Backhouse, Casson, or Hardy) 

 appear in the list of contributors from whom records or specimens 

 were received, given at the end of the work. 



I, myself, first gathered Lastrcea cristata in August, 1872, along 

 with Lathyrus cristata and Peucedanum palmtre (only again re-found in 

 1883, by Henry Johnson, of Barnsley), in a bushy, boggy place (an 

 alder car if I recollect rightly), not on the ' Waste ' exactly, but upon 

 the less open border much nearer Thorne. I hit upon the one station 

 after much roundabout rambling ; but previously in 1870-71, or early 

 in 1872, I had received the general locality from John Hardy, with 

 whom I was at one time in correspondence ; and I, knowing not 

 then aught of a Mr. Casson, presumed Hardy to be the discoverer, as 

 he was certainly the communicator to me of that and other facts 

 which I duly acknowledged in the preface to " W^est Torhshirer 



I willingly reject, as very improbable, the idea that Mr. John 

 Hardy could have found the bog-fern in question before 1856. I 

 received no specimen or date, which led me to search so carefully for 

 myself. Probably Mr. Hardy himself first learnt of the fern's 

 occurrence Irom Mr. Casson in some more or less indirect way, living 

 on the spot, as it were, as the latter gentleman did. Honour, however, 

 where honour is due ! It is part of the plan of my West YorksMre 

 Flora to give date with name of the earliest notice of each constituent 

 species ; so that now, thanks to Mr. Backhouse's timely note, the 

 record stands : " 1856, Wm. Casson, Thorne." 



