232 
ASPT DIAGEO. 
sian herbarium, as identical with his Asp. dumetorum : after a 
careful examination of the herbarium, with the assistance of Mr. 
Bennett, I cannot find a specimen of the present plant ; and in 
Smith’s own herbarium, at the house of the Linnean Society, the 
species is represented by two seedling and evidently diseased 
fronds of Lastraea multijlora, so that we really have no evi- 
dence beyond the Liverpool specimens, to which^I must again 
recur, that the Aspidium dumetorum of Smith and the Aspidi- 
um recurvum of Bree are synonymous : and therefore I have no 
choice but to follow the author whose description I understand, 
and with whose plant I am well acquainted. 
A paragraph from the pen of the late lamented Mr. D. Don, 
to whom I am under so many obligations for information on 
every branch of my subject, will, I think, prove the correctness 
of my statement as to Sir J. E. Smith’s authentic specimens : it 
is published in the ‘ Transactions of the Linnean Society of 
London,’ and is quoted verbatim below. 
“ This [Aspidium dumetorum'] is made up of two plants, the 
one, from Cromford moor, being a dwarf state of A. dilatatum, 
and the other, from Ravelston wood, near Edinburgh, having the 
segments of the frond abruptly truncate, and the habit at first 
sight altogether peculiar ; but an inspection of the original speci- 
mens in the Smithian herbarium, proves it to be nothing more than 
an accidental variety of the same species, namely, Aspidium dila- 
tatum, arising from disease, which is shown by the sudden ter- 
mination of the costae, and by the partial decay of the other 
segments. Specimens of the more ordinary state of A. dilatatum, 
gathered at the same time and from the same locality, are simi- 
larly affected but in a less degree. The distinctions derived 
from the fructification in the ^English Flora,’ are altogether falla- 
cious, and are partly dependant on the age of the frond, and partly 
on that of the individual plant. It is clear therefore that the 
Aspidium dumetorum must be erased from the list of species.”* 
With regard to the Liverpool plants now cultivated by Mr. 
Shepherd, I had carefully examined them, and found them pre- 
cisely identical with the plant I am now describing, previously 
* Trans. Linn. Soc. xvii. 435. 
