Vn. LASTREA. 109 
lowest only being cut down nearly to the rachis, are small, 
obtuse, with very blunt serratures. The venation is much 
simpler than in the forms already noticed, and more re- 
rembling that of the lobes of the var. incisa. The mid-vein 
produces a series of alternate vennles, which are simple or 
sometimes forked, and usually the lowest anterior venule 
only bears a sorus, so that they form scarcely more than a 
simple line on each side the rachis about even with the 
sinus of the pinnules. One or two of the basal pinnules 
sometimes produce two or three sori. The indusium is 
convex and persistent. This variety has been found in 
Durham at Teesdale by Mr. J. Backhouse ; in Yorkshire 
at Ingleborough, and in Cumberland by the Rev. G. 
Finder; at Coniston in Lancashire by Miss Beever; and, 
in 1851 near Llvn Ogwen in Carnarvonshire by Mr. 
S. O. Gray. 
The variety cristata is perhaps one of the handsomest 
ferns in existence, and though a monstrosity, is, like 
many other of the monstrosities that occur among the 
ferns, reproduced without variation from the spores. The 
fronds are about two feet high, narrow lanceolate, with 
rather distant pinnae, which, at the widest part of the 
frond, are about two inches in length ; they are narrow, 
tapering from the base upwards. The apex of the frond, 
and of even,' pinna, is multifidly-forked, and symmetrically 
developed into a tasselled tuft of crisped segments, exactly 
as occurs in Athyrium Filix-foemina, var. multifidvm. 
The fructification is copious on the upper part of the 
fronds, and quite agrees with that of the normal form of 
the species. It was found at Charleston, near St. Austell 
in Cornwall, and is cultivated in the Royal Garden at Kew. 
Another form, perhaps entitled to rank as a variety, 
mentioned in Hooker and Arnott's British Flora as oc- 
curring abundantly in Devonshire, is found by Mr. Back- 
house in Yorkshire, Durham, and the Clova district. Its 
chief peculiarities are a yellowish green colour, a great 
abundance of long hair-like ferruginous scales on the pri- 
