20 
Europe an Ferns. 
is, as its name denotes, a native of New Zealand, and is interesting as having secured a 
temporary footing among British plants. It was found, in 1874, growing on the lower 
stonework of a bridge over the river Swale, near Thirsk, Yorkshire, having probably been 
washed from some garden by a flood. (See “Journal of Botany, 1875,” p. 78.) 
DAVALLIA CANARIENSIS, Smith. 
This pretty species is now familiar as a cultivated plant, under the name of the Hare's-foot 
Fern ; it has long been an inhabitant of our greenhouses, having been introduced to the Royal 
Gardens at Hampton Court before 1699. It is readily known by its remarkable rhizome or 
caudex, which is quite above ground, creeping for a considerable distance, and climbing on or 
over rocks, walls, and trees, and when grown in pots speedily extending over their edges. This 
creeping aerial caudex is not of great diameter, not exceeding indeed half an inch, and produces 
many short branches; it is cylindrical, and sends off roots from its under side ; and owes its pecu- 
liar appearance to the very dense covering of scales or palese with which it is completely enveloped. 
These scales are of considerable length and closely overlap one another ; they are lanceolate-linear, 
broad at the base but tapering to a long point, and delicate greyish orange in colour, paler at 
the edges ; at the extremities of the rhizome they form a blunt rounded cushion, from which the 
plant gets its name. The fronds are given off singly at considerable intervals on the elongated 
caudex, the growing point of which is always much in advance of the youngest frond ; they vary 
from 6 to 18 inches in height, of which the stipes occupies fully one-third. This latter is erect, 
stiff, rounded beneath, but deeply channelled along its upper surface, and articulated with the 
rhizome ; the base is surrounded with the paleae of the caudex, but no scales or hairs of any kind 
occur on itself. The general outline of the frond is triangular or deltoid, not much longer than 
broad, with the wide-spreading pinnae gradually diminishing in length upwards, few in number 
and placed alternately. It is tri- or quadri-pinnatisect in division ; the pinnules are deltoid- 
lanceolate, and the ultimate divisions are lanceolate or oval, and deeply cut into narrow segments; 
the texture is coriaceous, and the colour bright green. The sori are terminal, each being borne 
at the summit of a vein which is thickened below its origin, and divides into two branches which 
run along the margins of the sorus, and are carried out beyond it into the two teeth of the fertile 
segments which project one on either side of the sorus ; the indusium is attached at the base and 
sides so as to form half a cup, the semi-circular upper margin being free. The spores are yellow, 
oblong, and worty. 
This Fern, like Dicksonia Culcita, is one of that type of plants to which the name Atlantic is 
applied, and has very much the same area as that species. It is in Europe confined to Portugal 
and south-western Spain, occurring in the former country frequently about Fisbon, the Serra de 
Cintra, &c., and in the latter in Gallicia and Andalusia ; in the latter province being particularly 
abundant about S. Roque, Algeciras, and the southernmost part of Spain — Tarifa. It grows 
especially over old stems of cork-oaks and olives, and shows a special liking for the neighbourhood 
of the sea. Beyond European bounds this species of Davallia has but a few localities. It is found 
in a few places on the opposite side of the Straits of Gibraltar, in Morocco near Tangiers ; and it is 
a well-known fern in Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, and Tencriffe. It docs not grow in the 
Azorean group. 
Linnaeus called this fern by two names ; it is his Potypodium lusitanicum, and also 
Trichomanes canariense. 
