
414 BRITISH FERNS 
LXXVI 
PROLIFERUM WOLLASTON (Woll.) 
Mr. С. В. Wollaston. 8. Devon. 1852. 
2 itt, G а, 
Syn. ACUTILOBUM PROLIFERUM (Woll.) 
From the original plant. “This is a true acutilobe, frond 
elongate, deltoid, tripinnate,—in its best character has only one or 
two pairs of bulbille seated in the axils of the lowest pair of pinna ; 
pinnules acute. ”—Nore by Mr. Wollaston. 
No British Fern exceeds this in beauty, and probably none has 
figured so prominently in exhibitions ; it is not to be wondered at 
therefore that it should have taken more than one person to find it. 
With reference to its discovery Mr. Wollaston relates that himself 
and the late Rev. Wm. Gardiner,—then Curate of Ottery St. 
Mary,—during a ramble in that neighbourhood, being brought 
suddenly by a bend in the lane face to face with it, were at the 
same instant (it was then a large plant and in true character) 
transfixed with astonishment, etc. Mr. Wollaston was, however, 
the first to recover his presence of mind, and the plant will ever 
deservedly bear the name of the first of British Fern-hunters. * 
* The name proliferum was first given to a plant found in S. Devon more 
than thirty years ago by Choule, one of the Kew Gardeners. Mr. Wollaston 
states that an impression prevailed at one time that it was exotic—probably 
from its difference to other then known British Ferns. Dr. Allchin writes that 
in 1852 this plant was growing in the outdoor fernery at Kew, marked Р, a. 
discretum, and afterwards angustatum, and it was from spores of this that he 
raised the very beautiful proliferous form that bears his name, which was much 
more proliferous than the original and perhaps more so than any that has since 
been found or raised. Choule's plant being the first to show its character was 
named by Mr. Moore Proliferum. Subsequently other proliferous forms were 
found and named proliferum— Wollastoni, Footii, Crawfordie, Holeane, 
Henleye, Moulei, etc. As all these partook more or less the finely-cut character 
of the original Proliferum, and no other proliferous form was then known, it was 




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