\ 
\ 
290 LH RSE SSEXeNATURALTIS IS 
January 1878, I noted that there was “ a great deal of P. vulgare” 
on hedge-banks between Chignal and Pleshey. A fortnight later 
I saw it “ very fine, with its vars. serratum and denticulatum,” 
around Berners (commonly called “‘ Barnish ’’) Wood, at Berners 
Roothing. To-day, the Polypody is not only infinitely less 
common than it was throughout the whole of that district : it 
may even be described as scarce there—a fact to which I can 
testify as a result of a cycle-trip I recently (September 1922) 
made through most of the Roothing parishes. 
Similar evidence comes from other parts of the county. 
In the early part of last century, the Polypody grew very 
abundantly in Epping Forest, chiefly on the crowns of the old 
pollarded hornbeams and oaks, which were often most pictur- 
esquely crowned and festooned by it. Edward Newman wrote 
in 1840° :—‘‘ In Epping Forest, I have often seen it ornament- 
ing, with its bright green fronds, the heads of the pollarded horn- 
beams, when the wintry blast has stripped them of their summer 
verdure.”’ My own acquaintance with the Forest (particularly 
that part lying north of Epping, including Wintry Wood) extends 
back to 1869. J was then quite asmall child, but [can remember - 
very distinctly the masses of fronds of Polypody which then 
covered the crowns of many of the trees, especially in that part 
of the Forest indicated. But go there now and see how many 
trees are still festooned in this way. Peradventure there may 
be a couple of dozen ! 
The same thing has occurred in the extreme north-east of the 
county. Mr. J. C. Shenstone writes me :—— 7Whengi=pecanera 
study the Essex flora in 1875, one found Polypody abundant 
under the shadow of oak trees growing in hedgerows on sandy 
tracts in the vicinity of Colchester. I can recall several colonies 
beside roads in Tendring Hundred, others between Colchester 
and the Blackwater, as well as others elsewhere. When I left 
Essex in 1907, these colonies, if not extinct, had become sadly 
depleted.” 
Now why should the Polypody in particular be disappearing 
in this way? The reasons given above for the disappearance 
or decrease of other ferns seem applicable to it to a small extent 
only ; for it does not grow in bogs which are liable to be drained 
5, British Ferns, p. 32 (1840) ; 2nd ed., p. 110 (1844) ; 4th ed., 1865, p. 61. 
6 I have never seen it flourishing so greatly on trees elsewhere, except in Parham Park, Sussex, 
‘on 26 April 1879. i 
