334 BRITISH FERNS 
XXXVI 
BARNES (Moore) 
Mr. J. М. Barnes. Westmoreland. 1865. 
А пе AUR 
Syn. ADPRESSA BARNES (Wol?) 
One of the rarest and most beautiful of British Ferns ;—its 
perhaps most marked characteristic,—the perfectly horizontal “ іе” 
of the pinnules, which gives such an air of lightness, and makes it 
look like a very ladder of the Fairies,—is quite obliterated in a 
nature print. 
Who will not read with the liveliest interest and sympathy Mr. 
Barnes’ account of its discovery! “Z. montana Barnesi/ was found 
on a bare mountain side exposed to the north, it grew on a slightly 
raised breast or ridge of earth close toa spring of water; there 
were three or four separate and good-sized plants ;—its aspect to any 
Fern-hunter would have been most startling, to me it was astound- 
ing; here, on a bleak mountain side, where other Ferns were 
stunted and starved, stood this marvellous-looking plant, with its 
bold, upright, narrow fronds two feet high, its dark green colour, 
its pinnules, standing in their peculiar way, and its robust habit, 
utterly unlike anything I had ever seen in creation; I believe my 
first feeling was that I must be in a dream,—the next that it must 
be a new species,—and when I found it to be a montana I sat down 
to admire it, feeling the happiest of Fern-hunters. 
It is unfortunate this Fern prints so badly that no one can form 
any correct idea of what the plant is like from seeing either a 
pressed frond or a print. 




