ehrhart’s fern. 
205 
This fern is of common occurrence on the continent of Eu- 
rope, and throughout the United States of North America. I 
have received American specimens from Mr. Oakes, Mr. Lea, 
and Mr. Boott, the latter accompanied by living plants, which, 
have been growing for two years at Leominster, side by side with 
others from Lynn ; and although Mr. Lea, of Cincinnati, informs 
me that Dr. Torrey considers the American plant distinct, I 
must confess that the two appear to me to be identical. 
This species is well figured in the ^ Flora Londinensis.’^ In 
Sowerby’s ‘ English Botany ’ the name occurs twice : plate 
1949 represents Lastraa Filix-maSy and plate 2125 appears to 
be intended for the present species, but is not characteristic. 
In describing L. Filix-mas Sir J. E. Smith remarks “ This 
species was certainly never mistaken for A. cristatum by the 
writer of ‘English Botany,’ p. 1949, but Mr. Sowerby was de- 
ceived by a wrong specimen sent him from the Isle of Wight, 
which he supposed of course to be correct, and from which he 
drew the figure. The blunder was set right in v. 30, p. 2125, 
of the same work.”f 
The name of cristatum was evidently intended by Linneus 
to comprise the present and the next species. Hudson, Berk- 
enhout. Withering, and Bolton, adopt from Linneus the name of 
Polypodium cristatum, but apparently without any knowledge 
of the present species. Ehrhart was the first to describe the 
plant as a distinct and separate species, under the elegant name 
of CallipterisyX which has been adopted by Lamarck and 
Decandolle,§ perhaps the best nomen claturists of the continent. 
It becomes a question concerning which much might be ad- 
vanced on both sides, whether the name of Linneus or Ehrhart 
ought to stand : it appears to me to issue in the adoption of the 
Linnean name, since it happens that the author has selected a 
frond of this, the rarer species, as the authentic representative 
of his Polypodium cristatum. I am, however, compelled to re- 
linquish the English name of “ crested,” as having been em- 
ployed by Hudson, Withering, &c., to a different species ; indeed 
* Flor. Lond. t. 113. f Eng. Flor. iv. 276. Ehr. Beitrage, iii. 77. 
§ Flor. Franc, ii. 277. 
