252 
ASPLENIACE^. 
which seems remarkable, since Mr. H. Doubleday informs me it 
is very plentiful on walls and banks in the Channel Islands. 
He slept on the island of Serk, in a little stone cottage, covered 
with Asplenium lance olatum, Adiantum-nigrwn and Tricho- 
manes. Mr. Watson informs me he found it in Fayal, one of 
the Azores, and that Dr. Lemann collected it in Madeira. 
The only tolerable figure of this fern with which I am ac- 
quainted is in Gerarde’s Herbal : ^ that in Sowerby’s ^ English 
Botany ’ f is more like Asplenium fontanum ; and that in Mr. 
Francis’s ‘ Analysis of British Ferns rather resembles C?/5- 
topteris fragilis than the present plant. I do not know Bolton’s 
figure § referred to by Withering. 
It is one of those species which has fortunately escaped all 
confusion in nomenclature : we are indebted to Hudson || for 
describing and naming it as a distinct species, and I believe all 
subsequent anthors have adopted his name. It must, however, be 
observed that our plant is not the Asplenium lanceolatum of Hoff- 
mann,1[ an error judiciously pointed out by Weber and Mohr,^^ 
that plant being nothing more than a variety of Asplenium Adi- 
antum-nigrum. These authors also correctly observe that Asp. 
lanceolatum has never been found in Germany. It appears that 
our plant was well known to Bay, who describes it as Filix 
elegans Adianto nigro accedens, segmentis rotundiorihusr ft 
The only habitats he gives are, first, on the authority of Sherard, 
‘‘ rocks on the north side of the Isle of Jersey,” and secondly, 
on the authority of Bobart, the porch of Adderbury church 
in Oxfordshire : ” he also adds that it has been found in Eng- 
land by Mr. Woodward, but gives no more precise information. 
The Adderbury church habitat I have thought better to omit, 
supposing that Adi'antum-nigrum was the plant observed. 
* Ger. Em. 1135. f Eng. Bot. t. 240. | Analysis, plate v. fig. 2. 
§ Bolt. Fil. tab. 17, 2. 
11 Asplenium lanceolatum fronclibus duplicato-pinnatis, lanceolatis : foliolis 
alternis; pinnis obovatis inciso-crenatis. Habitat in muris antiquis et ru- 
pibus circa St. Ives et alibi in Cornubia copiose. — Flora Anglica, ii. 454. 
^ Hoff. Deutscb. Flor. ii. 12. 
Botaniscbes Taschenbucli. Deutschlands Kryptogamisclie Gewachse, p. 41. 
ttSyn. 127. 
