PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
67 
This is the ordinary or more usual arrangement of the bundles, and may, I think, 
be looked on as the typical or normal venation of the plant. (Plate vi. fig. 2.) 
Let us now contrast the arrangement of parts in variety Cristatum. The 
fruitful branch remains, of course, unaltered, but in the barren branch great 
changes occur, instead of owe, we find that two bundles are given off from the main 
bundles at base of each of the lower pinnules, and each of these bundles gives off 
in turn a single bundle to each of its secondary pinnules, and these tertiary bundles 
comport themselves exactly as the secondary bundles in the ordinary form. In fact, 
the whole arrangement resembles very closely what has been stated to occur in the 
fruitful branch, the arrangements being, in fact, identical, as proved by the spe¬ 
cimen quoted before, in which these secondary branches of the main branch were 
some of them fruitful, proving that these barren lower pinnae of the deltoid form 
are identical with the fruitful branches of the common form, and that, therefore, 
the fruitful branch, as already stated, is merely an extreme modification of the 
barren branch, each pinnule of the latter representing a bunch or cluster of the 
former, and each linear cluster of the former representing a single division of the 
pinnule of the latter; as also can be shown by examining the venation in the 
pinnules of the deeply-incised form of the moonwort, which often bear sori on 
their edges, each sorus presenting at its base an arrangement of veins similar to 
what I have attempted to describe on the fruitful branch. (Plate vi. fig. 1.) 
This variety now under consideration occurs both in the ordinary form of Botry- 
chium Lunaria and in that with deeply-incised pinnules, and this brings us to the 
consideration of whether this form may not be Doody’s old plant, recorded by Ray. 
I am inclined to think it is ; though a most competent judge on the matter, Edward 
Newman, has referred this plant of Doody’s to the species Rutaceum, Swartz, as 
also Sir J. E. Smith, in the English Flora (vol. iv., page 328). Ray describes his 
variety as follows (vide Phytologist, vol. v., page 129 •; Newman’s British Ferns, third 
edition, page 320):—-“Lunariam minorem ramosam et Lunariam xmnovfoliis dissectis, 
Westmoreland, D. Lawson ; hujus plantm varietates; non distinctas species opinatur. 
(D. Doody, Syn. II., App. 340.) Lunariam minorem foliis dissectis revera dis- 
tinctam speciem vult, cum segmenta seu lunulse non solum eminenter sint sectce , sed 
ptanta etiam elatior sit et botrus racemosior. Est Lunaria botrytis minor pinnulis 
laciniatis , in Borealibus nostris Pluk. Aim. 288.” Now, this whole description, 
especially foliis dissectis , and “ non solum eminenter sectse” (qy. cut at the apex) 
sed planta etiam elatior (the broad-base of frond) et botrus racemosior (whichAlso is 
the case in several of my specimens), in my judgment more closely agrees with Bot. 
Lun. var. cristatum Kin. than with Botrychium Rutaceum. Again, the plant 
seems to have occurred amongst the ordinary form, but sufficiently rarely to call for 
comments, all rather pointing to a variety than to an undoubted species, which, if it 
had occurred so frequently as Ray’s plant appears to have done, ought to have fallen 
since then under notice of some of our botanists, and Smith, from his notice, does 
not appear to me to have met the plant, as, had he met only the perfect form of 
this variety, it is too remarkable to have been passed over without description ; and 
had he met the intermediate forms, he certainly would have mentioned so strong a 
proof as they would have afforded of the specific identity of the two forms. I know 
that these latter objections may also be urged against var. cristatum ; but still that 
Ray actually saw or knew of Doody’s plant is unmistakeable, and it seems more 
likely to have been merely a variety of plant known to exist in England in quantity, 
than a plant of whose occurrence we have no proof, if we except Mr. Cruick- 
shank’s specimen of monstrous growth from Dundee (Brit, ferns, page 323), and these 
are too much deformed to enable us to form an opinion with any degree of certainty. 
These arguments are not for one moment to be supposed to be directed against 
the existence of Botrychium rutaceum as a species, but merely to prove that Doody’s 
plants and these now exhibited were probably the same. If so, it is interesting to 
find a form apparently lost for so long re-appearing at a distance from the original 
localities. 
The other forms which are now exhibited illustrate all the varieties of form which 
appear in the fern with which I am acquainted. They are, in addition to the ordi- 
