Woodsia alpina

Its distribution is circumpolar and includes much of northern and western Canada and the coastal areas of Greenland. The species is considered to be "near threatened" in Scotland where it is on the edge of its natural range, and it became a protected species in the UK in 1975 under the Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Act. ==Discovery and origin==

The first reference to this species came in John Ray's 1690 Synopsis, which recorded the discovery of a rare fern near the summit of Snowdon in Wales by Edward Lhwyd. However, the plant was first definitely identified as a separate species from specimens collected in Scotland in James Bolton's 1785 publication Filices Britannica. Bolton distinguished between Acrostichum ilvense and Acrostichum alpina, now Woodsia ilvensis and Woodsia alpina respectively, which had previously been conflated. The story is further confused because although Lhwyd called his find A. ilvense, and a translation of the Latin name suggests the plant we now know as W. ilvensis, examination of his specimens has shown that he collected W. alpina. The genus Woodsia was not established until 1810 by Robert Brown, who named it named after the English botanist Joseph Woods. ==Victorian collectors==

Alpine woodsia and W. ilvensis both came under severe threat from Victorian fern collectors in the mid 19th century in Scotland, especially in the Moffat Hills. This period of collecting became known as Pteridomania (or "fern-fever"). John Sadler, later a curator of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, nearly lost his life obtaining a fern tuft on a cliff near Moffat and a botanical guide called William Williams died collecting alpine woodsia in Wales in 1861. His body was found at the foot of the cliff where Lhwyd had first collected the species. ==References==