3 
European Ferns. 
DICKSONIA. 
HE genus Dicksonia is most fully represented in tropical America and 
Polynesia ; one species ( D . punctilobula), however, extends as far north as the 
United States and Canada, several others being abundantly scattered through 
the warm southern parts of the temperate zone. There are from thirty to 
thirty-five species, varying greatly in size and in the cutting of the fronds, 
some — such as D. antarctica, a native of New Zealand and Australia, fre- 
quently seen in our greenhouses — being tree-like in habit, having stems from 
ten to forty feet in height, while others have creeping rootstocks. One of 
the tree species, D. arborescens, was introduced to English cultivation in 1786 
from St. Helena, to which island it is peculiar; like many other of the indi- 
genous plants of that island, however, it is now dying out there. The genus is 
technically distinguished by having the sori situated at or just within the margin of the pinnule, 
at the apex of a vein ; in about half the species the involucre is distinctly two-valved, while 
in the remainder it is cup-shaped or but very indistinctly two-valved : the stalked sporangia 
split transversely, and have an incomplete vertical ring. 
The fronds are, in some of the larger species, such as D. antarctica , as much as two or 
three yards in length and two feet or more across ; but their more usual dimensions are from 
one to two feet long and from six inches to a foot broad. In some species, such as D. moluccana , 
from Java, the stems are thickly furnished with strong hooked prickles; in others they are 
densely clothed at the base with a thick coat of yellow-brown, often shining, hairs ; the stems 
of D. Selloiviana , from tropical America, are so densely clad with long fulvous hairs, changing 
to brown or blackish, that Mr. Spruce says they “ precisely resemble the thighs of the howling 
monkey.” 
The so-called “ Tartarian ” or “ Scythian lamb,” about which strange stories were told by 
early travellers, is the long caudex of a plant of this genus ( D . Barometz) : this is covered 
with long silky hairs, which look like wool when old ; and by judicious manipulation the 
natives of Southern China (where the fern grows) convert it into a rough resemblance to a 
lamb, the caudex being inverted, and supported on the bases of four of the lower fronds. The 
true history of the “lamb” was not known until 1725, when Dr. Breyne, of Dantzig, published 
a description of it as it really existed. In a curious folio volume, published in 1791, entitled 
“ Museum Britannicum, or a display in thirty-two plates, in antiquities and natural curiosities, 
in that noble and magnificent cabinet the British Museum,” by John and Andrew von Rymsdyk, 
there is a striking figure of a specimen which is still to be seen in the public gallery of the 
Department of Botany in that institution. The authors, although speaking of it as a “ zoophye,” 
state, accurately enough, that “ it is nothing but the root of a plant much like fern ;” but they 
quote, as “very singular and amusing,” the following description of it from “ Les Voyages de 
Jean Struys,” which, as it shows the notions which were formerly entertained concerning this 
“strange plant-animal,” we here quote. “This surprising fruit has the figure of a lamb, with 
the feet, head, and tail of this animal distinctly formed : whence it is called, in the language 
of the country, Bonnarez or Boraner: each of which Muscovite names signifies little lamb. 
His skin is covered with a down very white, and as fine as silk; the Tartars and Muscovites 
