i A
seen, is taken from a specimen collected by the late Miss Hutchins
in Bantry Bay. In that favoured locality and in other situations
on the west coast of Ireland, and also at Larne near Belfast on
the north-east coast, very luxuriant specimens are often met with
in company with others as narrow and bushy as are commonly
seen on the south coast of England. It varies indeed greatly in
size, the frond being sometimes scarcely a line in width, sometimes
nearly half an inch; but its admirable distinguishing character,
that of being repeatedly proliferous from the midrib, is invariable.
The only British plant with which a young botanist
can confound it, is the somewhat rarer D. rmcifolia, from which
its thinner substance, brighter colour, proportionally narrower
leaves, and the lanceolate, not linear-oblong, form of the leaflets
distinguisli it.
The first notice of the species was by Dr. Solander who named
a specimen in the Banksian Plerbarium, the native country of
which was unknown. Mr. Wigg having about the year 1794
found it on the Norfolk shores, it was published in the ‘ Linnsean
Transactions,’ as a British plant, and is now well known to occur
in tolerable plenty on most of the European coasts. I have not
seen any American specimens, nor is it found in the Southern
Ocean. A species does indeed occur on several of the Antarctic
Coasts, as at Aucldand Island, Kerguelen’s Land, Cape Horn and
the Falkland Islands, which agrees in very many respects with D.
Hypoglossum, having the same general habit, the same lanceolate
leaves and the same proliferous growth; but in it (D. crassinervia,
Mont) the midribs of the leaves are usually very much broader
and thicker. I fear, however, that this character is not a very
constant one, some Falkland Island individuals having a much
less broad midrib than others, or than the original Auckland specimens,
and I am almost disposed to regard the Southern plant
as more properly a variety of the present species than speciflcally
distinct.
Fig. 1. D e l b s s e b ia H y po g lo s sum :—natural size. 2. Leaflet with tetraspores.
3. Section of ditto, showing part of the sorus. 4. Tetraspores separated.
5. Leaflet, with tubercles. 6. Section of ditto. 7. Tubercle removed.
8. Seeds from tubercle:—all i