THE BUCKLER FERN. 161 
name Nephrodium to the net-veined group of reniform Aspidiee ; 
and that of Lastrea to the free-veined group. 
The name Lastrea was first and long ago used by Bory for a sub- 
generic group, which, neither according to ancient nor modern views 
can be held to have any value. The name had consequently lapsed, 
but was revived by Presl under the form of Lastrea, for the group 
now under notice. There is no ground whatever for the arbitrary 
selection, which Mr. Newman has since made, of Lastrea Oreopteris. 
(montana), as the plant to bear Bory’s name, to the exclusion of all 
the other species now usually associated with it; and this he 
himself has shown by quoting Bory’s subgeneric character, the 
application of which to this plant was either an original error, or the 
result of very imperfect observations. Lastrea montana, in fact, 
accords much less exactly with Bory’s character, than the three 
. Polypodies he associated with it. Presl was therefore quite justified 
when in 1836 he revived the lapsed name (altering it to Lastrea) for 
a group which included two of Bory’s five species—Thelypteris and 
Oreopteris (montana),—the others being referrible to Polypodium ; 
and though Presl's genus is rather typified by Lastrea Filiz-mas, it 
may include without violence the two species just mentioned. There 
is another name, the Dryopteris of Adanson, applied by him to the 
Lastrea Filiz-mas, which the botanical name-reformers of the begin- 
ning of the present century would have done well to have adopted ; and 
both Schott in 1884, and subsequently Dr. Asa Gray, have made use 
of it, but its use has not become extended, and it is therefore hardly 
binding on us now to revert to such antiquities. Of the two names 
therefore, applied specially to this generic group, and supported by 
modern botanical authority, namely Dryopteris and Lastrea, we select 
the latter as being the most widely adopted, and therefore avoiding 
much needless present change ; while the old name Aspidium, with 
which Roth’s Polystichum is nearly equivalent and coeval, is, as we 
have already mentioned, applied with greater propriety to species 
having peltate indusia. These several names were judiciously dis- 
tributed nearly a quarter of a century ago—Aspidium to the netted- 
veined peltate Aspidiee ; Polystichum to the free-veined peltate 
Aspidiee ; and Lastrea to the free-veined reniform Aspidiee ; and 
no further change, at least for the British species, is required. 
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