lt>2 
E ur ope an Ferns. 
present so much variation, that it would be impossible in a sketch like this to give any 
account of them. L. dilatata is easily grown, attaining a large size in moderately moist 
and shady situations, and remaining green during almost the whole year when slightly sheltered 
from the weather. 
HAY-SCENTED FERN: LASTREA zEMULA, Brack. 
We have here a fern, resembling in many points the two species last described, and, indeed, 
united with them by some botanists, which is easily distinguished from them by its pleasant 
odour of new-mown hay. One would not usually consider the scent of the plant as likely to 
form a specific character ; but both in a living and in a dried state this odour is so powerful 
in L. cemula as at once to distinguish it. The rich evergreen fronds have a curiously incurved 
or curled appearance which is very characteristic, and their outline is usually more distinctly 
triangular than in the foregoing species. It is a smaller plant than either dilatata or 
spinulosa ; Mr. Moore draws attention to a character furnished by the manner in which the 
fronds decay: “Whilst the fronds of cristata [in which he includes spinulosa ] and dilatata decay 
first near the base of the stipes, so that the fronds often fall while they yet appear green 
and fresh upwards ; in cemula the stipes continues firm while the frond itself is undergoing 
decay, the disorganisation going on from above downwards, and not from below upwards.” 
L. cemula (which is also known as L. f cm is ecu) is abundant in some parts of Britain, 
although its distribution is somewhat local : it is mainly confined to the south and west of 
England, being recorded from the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Sussex, 
Kent, Glamorgan, Pembroke, Carnarvon, Anglesey, York, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, and 
less certainly from Herefordshire and Shropshire. In Scotland it is found in Dumbartonshire, 
the Orkneys, and the islands of the Clyde. It is very abundant in the west of Ireland, 
attaining a height of nearly three feet in some of the shady thickets about Killarney. It is 
not known in Europe beyond the limits of the United Kingdom, but is abundant in Madeira 
and the Azores, although absent from the Canaries : its distribution is thus extremely limited. 
L. cemula is easily cultivated, if planted in a porous soil, being readily increased by the 
separation of the crowns : it is a handsome plant, and deserves a place in every collection 
of ferns. 
