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TUB LADY FERN. 



any opinion being formed as to their permanence; they will doubtless be submitted to the usual 

 test, namely, cultivation. We must also repeat, in order that the whole truth may appear, that 

 among herbarium specimens, in addition to those we havo referred with tolerable certainty to the 

 forms above enumerated, there are many others which could not bo satisfactorily placed. Docs this 

 long scries of gradations represent a species ? One can scarcely imagine two compound Ferns more 

 dissimilar than the extreme states of the motfe and incisum groups, or the forms represented in our 

 plates XXX, and XXXI, C. Or, after all, is there in nature no such thing as a species among plants, 

 but ever-changing varieties, or races of individuals only? And is a "species" to bo considered 

 merely as a group of individuals mom or less alike, or having certain marks in common, brought 

 together artificially for the convenience of naturalists, as certaiu so-called species are collected 

 together in the same way, and for the same purpose, in the groups called genera ? The deep study 

 of Kerns woidd be scarcely likely to produce a decided negative to this question. 



