now, but by Presl to twenty-five! keeping apart and placing in 
two new genera the only truly distinct species, viz. his Op Mo- 
derma pendulum and Cheiroglossapalmata. Dr. Hooker had the 
boldness to be the first, as stated in the ‘ British Flora/ Lc., to 
declare these to be slightly modified forms of one and the same 
species. “ The genus/’ he says, “ affords one of the most 
striking examples of the proneness of many botanists to make 
species on insufficient grounds, and of the fallacy that prevails 
with regard to species being confined within narrow limits. I 
confidently affirm that were I to show the authors of many of 
the so-called species of OpMoglossnm, preserved in the Hooke- 
rian Herbarium, their own specimens, named by themselves, 
and substitute ‘ Britain on their tickets for the distant coun¬ 
tries from which they were brought, these authors would unhe¬ 
sitatingly pronounce their plants to be 0. vulgatum. As to the 
book-characters of the species, some are founded on erroneous 
observations, others are drawn from exceptional varieties or 
forms, and not a few present only differences of words and not 
of meaning.” It is true, one or two of my own formerly recog¬ 
nized species come into this category; but my numerous speci¬ 
mens received from various portions of the globe, Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and America, Australia, continents and islands, tropical 
and temperate regions, many of them well authenticated species, 
have convinced me of my error in having so done. All have the 
fronds destitute of any real costa, and all are reticulated; and in 
some of the larger and more luxuriant specimens there are free 
veins in some of the areoles, more general towards the margin. 
Plate 46. Common British, forms of Ophioglossum vulgatum , Linn.,— natural 
size (the right-hand figure is from Orkney, Mr. J. T. Sgme, and is clearly a form 
passing into 0. Lusitanicum , L.). Fig. 1. Portion of the frond. 2. Portion of 
a fertile spike. 3.-Spores :— more or less magnified. 
