140 
European Ferns. 
are the only English counties in which it has certainly been found ; in the former 
of these it occurs on Falcon Clints, in Tcesdalc, where it attains a large size. In Scotland 
it is more plentiful, and more characteristically developed : the counties of Stirling, Perth, Forfar, 
Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Inverness, Dunbarton, Ross, Suther- 
land, and Caithness. In Ireland it is very local, occurring 
only in the west and north-west, and often in but very 
small quantity, ranging in altitude from about a hundred 
and twenty feet in Tyrone to two thousand five hundred 
feet on Brandon. It grows in clefts in the mountains, in 
exposed situations among rocks and loose stones, but is 
by no means common even in the localities which produce 
it most freely. On the European continent it is plentiful 
in the temperate and cool regions, especially on elevated 
mountains in the south. It reaches the extreme north, 
being found in great profusion at sea-level in Englishman’s 
Bay, Disco. Besides Lapland, it occurs rather plentifully 
in Finland, Russia, and Sweden and Norway, coming down 
through Denmark and Gothland to central Europe : 
Carniolia, Tauria, Hungary, Germany, and Switzerland, 
and — more sparingly — Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, and 
Greece, and the Mediterranean region, all produce it. It 
passes over the European boundary, and is recorded from 
Asia Minor and Siberia, as well as from Northern India 
(the Himalayas). It is not known from Africa or Australia, 
and is but little found in America. In British Columbia 
it is found at the Cascade Mountains, at an elevation of 
from five to six thousand feet above the sea : here it 
attains very large dimensions, some of the specimens 
brought hence measuring two feet in length. Only one 
locality seems to be known for the Holly Fern in the 
United States, and that is in woods on the southern shore 
of Lake Superior and northwards. It will thus be seen 
that the extra-European range of the Holly Fern is 
decidedly limited. 
I he dark-green perennial fronds of the Holly Fern 
rise from a thick short upright or decumbent caudex, 
which is thickly covered with brown scales in its upper 
portion, and consists of the densely packed bases of the 
older and decaying fronds. The stipes, which is usually 
short, from an inch to two inches long, is also covered 
with large brown chaffy scales, which indeed also clothe the rachis, but are much smaller 
and of a less prominent hue than those of the rachis. The fronds are densely tufted, from 
six to eighteen (or in very luxuriant examples twenty-four) inches in length ; they are of 
a singularly hard unyielding leathery texture, and sometimes droop, while at others they stand 
upright. They are simply pinnate, and in this way the plant can be at once distinguished 
from a mature specimen of P. aculeatum , although the variety lobatum , when young, has a 
HOLLY FERN. 
