Asplenium. 
103 
“Phytologist” for 1844 (p. 1084), says that he collected specimens in Wharncliffe Wood in 
1838, although he was not able to find it subsequently. In the same work (p. 482) Mr. 
Samuel Gibson writes : “ I found a single root of this plant on an old wall above Skipton 
Castle in July, 1835 ; I took all the fronds, and the plant, of course, disappeared. And I 
have a specimen of the plant given me as a Teesdale plant, but perhaps under some 
mistake.” Mr. Gibson was not, however, a very accurate botanist, and in this case some 
error is quite probable. Mr. H. Shepherd, of the Liverpool Botanic Garden, found the 
fern in 1826 on the rocks above Matlock* but no later collector has been equally 
fortunate. But Mr. Newman, who always opposed the admission of Asplenium fontanum 
to the lists of British plants, throws much doubt upon the accuracy both of Mr. Redhead’s 
and Mr. Shepherd’s records, and states that a dealer in British ferns was in the habit of 
selling the species as genuinely British from an apparently inexhaustible stock.f Later on 
the Rev. W. T. Bree records a Scottish locality, an “ intelligent gardener ” having found the 
fern “ in considerable abundance on shaded rocks by the sea, two miles north-east of Stone- 
haven, Kincardineshire, in 1842.”! The plant was next recorded from Surrey, where it “was 
wont to luxuriate somewhat plentifully in the crevices of an old wall” on Tooting Common; 
but here again it had been destroyed before the locality was placed on record in the 
“ Phytologist ” (iv. 478, 1852). Then the Rev. A. Bloxam came forward with the announce- 
ment that he had seen a specimen from between Tan-y-Bwlch and Tremadoc, Merionethshire, 
and that the fortunate finder of it there had also collected it at Swanage Cave, in the Isle 
of Purbeck. Last of all, in 1852, the Rev. W. IP. Hawker communicated specimens to 
the Linnean Society, and to various herbaria, of the plant from the neighbourhood of 
Petersfield, Hampshire. Here the fern grew “on the north side of an old wall, about five 
feet high,” in company with Hart’s-tongue and Polypody. Mr. Hawker had known of its 
existence for many years; he says : “It is growing abundantly and luxuriantly, for I 
counted twelve tufts of it the last time I went to look at it, and I think the largest of 
these tufts must be fully two feet in circumference ... I have measured some of the fronds 
which I have by me, and find the largest to be close upon six inches long.” This is, we 
believe, the most recent record of the occurrence of the plant. Besides these British 
localities, Mr. Moore says he has seen a specimen from Cavehill, near Belfast ; but the 
authors of the “ Cybele Hibernica” do not refer to this. 
Our readers will be able to estimate for themselves the value of the evidence adduced, and 
may form their own judgment as to the nativity of Asplenium fontanum in Britain. We 
are inclined to think that the Amersham and Alnwick localities were genuine, although the 
plant is there extinct ; these date from a period anterior to the time when fern cultivation 
became general. This, indeed, would make us suspect the thorough wildness of many of the 
more recent localities, which, it will be noticed, are usually walls. 
The head-quarters of Asplenium fontanum are to be found in central Europe. It is met 
with in Spain, on the Pyrenees and in other localities ; in the mountainous parts of Trance 
upon damp rocks; in Italy (Naples) and Greece; in Flanders, Hungary, and Switzerland 
(Geneva), and in Germany, though rarely (near Marburg) ; it is recorded for Scandinavia, but 
this requires confirmation. Its extra-European distribution is very limited ; it occurs in the 
Ural mountains and in the Himalayas, and Dr. Aitchison has lately collected it at Shendloi 
and Sikaram, in Afghanistan, at an elevation of eleven thousand feet. 
There is no difficulty in distinguishing Asplenium fontanum from any other member of 
* “ Phytologist,” i. 1081. f Id., 1143. J Id. (1848), iii. 319. 
