Plate 44. 
HYMEN OPHYLLTJM Wilsoni, Hoot 
Mr. Wilsons Filmy-Fern. 
Hymenophyllum Wilsoni; fronds rigid, pinnate; pinnae recurved, subunila- 
teral, wedge-shaped, four- to six-lobed, the segments linear, undivided or bifid, 
spinuloso-serrate; involucres axillary, solitary, ovate, obtuse, inflated be¬ 
low, entire ; rachis slightly margined above. 
Hymenophyllum Wilsoni. Hook. Brit. Ml. ed. 1 . 1830, 450. Wils. in 
Engl. Bot. Suppl. t. 2686 ( excellent ). Hook, and Am. Brit. FI. ed. 8. 
p. 594. Van den Bosch, Synops. Hymenoph. p. 61. 
Hymenophyllum unilateral ? Bory , in Willd. Sp. FI. v. 5. p. 521. Moore, 
Brit. Ferns , Nat. Print, t. 49 B. 
Hymenophyllum Tunbridgense. Schk. Fil.p. 124. t. 135 D. 
Trichomanes Tunbridgense, Bolt. Fil. Brit. t. 31 ( not t. 2./. 17). 
Hah. Moist rocky glens in mountain districts: Devon, Cornwall, and north of 
England, but rare. Wales. Abundant in the Highlands of Scotland, and 
in Ireland, especially about the Lakes of Killarney; not unfrequently in 
company with H. Tunbridgense. 
This Hymenophyllum has given rise to much discussion, and 
to conflicting opinions : first, as to its distinctness from H. Tun¬ 
bridgense ; and secondly, as to its identity with the H. unilate- 
rale, a Bourbon species of Bory de St. Vincent, in Willdenow’s 
‘ Species Plantarum/ In regard to the first point, I think it is 
hardly possible to see the two kinds, as I have done in the West 
Highlands of Scotland, frequently growing on the same rock, in 
separate patches, yet maintaining their respective characters, 
without being satisfied of their being really different; and in this 
opinion I am supported by one of the most accurate and most 
acute Cryptogamic botanists of the present day, Mr. William 
Wilson, of Warrington, who had the merit of first distinguishing 
the two, as recorded in the first edition of our 4 British Flora/ 
“ So very different in aspect/’ writes Mr. Wilson (Eng. Bot. 
Suppl. t. 2686, under H. Wilsoni), “is this truly distinct species 
from the far more elegant H. Tunbridgense, that no botanist who 
has had the good fortune to see them luxuriantly growing in 
company in the rocky woods which border the wildly sequestered 
Upper Lake of Killarney, would hesitate to pronounce them two 
