A history of British ferns, and allied plants / By Edward Newman.

  • Edward Newman
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British ferns, and allied plants / By Edward Newman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    76/472 page 40
    characterizes L’. hyemale, . Mackait, and the more usual forms of L. variegatum, but has a smoother feel, like that of 1. pa- lustre, the species immediately following. A transverse section of the stem, which is given below, also differs considerably from that of the usual plant, as represented by the right hand figure at page 830. The sheaths are scarcely larger than the stem, with which, in dried specimens, they appear perfectly concolorous, with the exception of a narrow, sinuous, black band, at the sum- mit of each. The teeth are very short, somewhat wedge-shaped, generally blunt, and have obscure membranous margins ; but they are so easily injured by car- riage, &c., that dried specimens rarely exhibit them in perfection: they vary with striz from eight to twelve in num- ber. As in the usual form, the sheath of the catkin is much larger and looser than the rest: its teeth are also longer, and their membranous edges dilated and conspicuous. The catkin is small, black, terminal, striated and apiculate. — The most striking characters whereby to distinguish the pre- sent from the usual form of the species, are its great size, both as regards height and stoutness, its erect habit, its aquatic locality, and the comparative smoothness of the stem. Mr. Wilson ap- pears to attribute the great size and erect habit to its aquatic lo- cality, and its greater smoothness to the combined influence of water and the soil of the district in which it grows; and he ex- presses to me his unwillingness to admit it as a species. It may indeed be urged that the erect aquatic plant from Dublin and Kincardineshire is somewhat intermediate ; indeed Mr. Moore, who insists on the distinctness of the Port Marnock and Dublin canal plants, identifies the latter with the Mucruss variety: in this opinion I cannot concur without additional evidence in its support, the very different degree of roughness in the stem being alone a sufficient diagnostic.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image