Hie COMMON” POLY PODY, IN) ESSEX. 289 
The testimony of others is to exactly the same effect. Thus, 
Mr. Shenstone writes me :—‘‘ Our Essex woodlands have been 
largely cleared of the Male Ferns, Lady Ferns, &c., which were 
fairly abuidant in the woods near Colchester in my early botani- 
cal days.” Further, Mr. E. E. Turner, who has an unrivalled 
knowledge of the flora of the Coggeshall district, writes me that 
the Hart’s Tongue (Scolopendrium vuigare) ‘‘ was fairly common 
there when I was a boy, but I do not remember having scen a 
Specimen for years.” 
As to the main reasons for the disappearance of these ferns: 
from their old localities in the county, there can be no doubt 
whatever. That disappearance is due in part to more intensive 
cultivation and in part (as to those species which grow in bogs). 
to the steady draining of bogs ; but, more than all else, it 1s due 
to gradual eradication by trippers, trade-collectors, gardeners, 
and others, who dig up roots for removal to their gardens, where,. 
more often than not, they are neglected and quickly die. 
Yet one may well wonder whether there is not some other 
cause also at work—at least in connection with the Polypody, 
which, though still common, has decreased very markedly in- 
deed in recent years. 
When I was a boy, this fern was certainly immensely more 
abundantin Essex thanitisnow. Inthe district already referred 
to, including the whole of the Roothings and even beyond 
Dunmow, it was then very common on rotting stumps and 
among the roots of hedges growing on the banks of ditches, 
both by the roadside and among the fields. I have in my diary 
not a few notes to this effect. Thus, on 20th December 1875, 
I noted it-as “ immensely abundant—more so than I have ever 
seen it anywhere else— ”’ on the road-side banks between Chignal 
St. James and Dunmow. Again, on 30th December 1876, I 
noted it again as “immensely common ”’ on certain roadside 
and other banks at Lindsell, together with its varieties acutum 
and serratum, and with fronds which were not only bifid them- 
selves, but had also some of their pinne bifid.* At the same 
time and place, I also saw it growing on the crowns of pollarded 
trees, and noted explicitly that “ the top of one oak-tree was 
covered thickly by one root two yards square.’’ Again, on 18th 
4 Specimens gathered on this occasion are preserved in my herbarium, now in the Club’s. 
Museum. 
