TUNB RIDGE FILMY FERN.
-Smith,H y m e n o f h y l l u m T u n b r id g e n s e .- Hooker, Mackay,
Gray, Francis.
Trichomanes Tunbridgense.—Linneus, Hudson, Withering, Bolton,
Lightfoot.
E n g l a n d . .
W a l e s . \
Scotland , j
I r e l a n d .
LOCALITIES.
Kent, Tunbrid{?e Wells, on the high rocks, and in Edridge Pa rk; Sussex, Hand-
cross, and Tilgate Fount.
Unknown.
. County Galway, Drumsna Wood, near Lough Corrib; county Kerry, on rocks and
trees in Cromaglaun Mountain, O’Sullivans, Derrycunehy and Turk Cascades, in
numerous spots on the road under T urk Mountain, towards Kenmare on the
trunks of oak trees, and on ro ck s; county Cork, at Glengarriff; county Wicklow,
a t Hermitage Glen, Glendalough, and Powerscourt Waterfall.
In this country we have two so-called species of the genus
Hymenophyllum ; and although nearly all our botanists appear
to be agreed in considering them distinct, and even though the
difference between them he so obvious, and in so important a
part of the plant—its fructification,—yet I must acknowldege,
that in retaining the two as species, I merely bow to the opinion
of abler botanists than myself.
m m
Hymenophyllum Tunbridgense is a native of the southern
counties of England. I have seen numberless specimens from
Kent and Sussex, and I am told by different botanists of its
occurrence in Cornwall, Devonshire, Somersetsliire, and Glamorganshire
; but as I have seen no specimen from these counties, and
am therefore uncertain as to the species, I have refrained from
assigning tliese liabitats to either. In the south and west of
Ireland, Tunbridgense appears to be very abundant. I have
found it clothing the rocks about Killarney in very great
beauty and profusion.
The roots are black, wiry, and very slender; the rhizoma
long, black, slender, wiry, and creeping. The fronds consist of
a branched series of veins, each being clothed with a membranous
or filmy wing, as in Trichomanes : the branches or pinnæ are
alternate, and each more or less subdivided ; the subdivisions
or pinnulæ are mostly in pairs : the margin of the wing is
crenated, and very minutely spiny : the masses of thecæ are in
flat marginal receptacles, situated at the union of the pinnæ
with the rachis : in this species these receptacles have a serrated
external margin.