498 Tra nsa :! ion s . 



growth ; and, if a change, has apparently been evolved sud- 

 denly. The Doodia, for instance, is so totally different from 

 the ordinary D. media, even as found at Auckland, that no 

 one only partially acquainted with our New Zealand ferns would 

 for an instant regard the two as merely different forms of the 

 same plant. 



I observe that in a paper published in the last volume of 

 Transactions Mr. A. Hamilton quotes a remark which I made 

 in 1882 as to the apparent paucity of cresting in our New Zea- 

 land ferns, a view in which the late Professor Kirk and Mr. 

 H. F. Logan concurred with me. Since that date I have met 

 with sundry examples of crested ferns, and have at present 

 such forms of Adiantum formosum, Hypolepis distans, and 

 Pteris tremula. In my book on our fern<* a very remarkable 

 dwarf form of Polypodium pennigerum, which was a mere mass 

 of cresting, is figured on pi. xxv. It seems to me that cresting 

 arises from plants growing under some particularly favourable 

 conditions, as in several cases my plants have become so under 

 cultivation. I notice that when a plant thus breaks away 

 from the normal type, seedlings from it are apt to exhibit the 

 peculiarity in even an exaggerated form, and I think that the 

 great variety of appearance in the English ferns has arisen 

 from persons having taken up and cultivated plants which 

 presented any peculiarity. Before I became blind I had more 

 than twenty quite distinct forms of the English lady fern, and 

 about fifteen of the male fern, as well as hart's-tongue fern, 

 which was a mere mass of cresting. Even now I have a form 

 of lady fern in which the pinnae are depauperated into mere 

 semicircular projections from the midrib, and then have a heavy 

 tassel of cresting at the end of the latter. Anything more dif- 

 ferent from the ordinary type of the lady fern it would be hardly 

 possible to conceive. Mr. Hamilton's peculiar examples seem 

 to have been mostly of one kind of fern, Lomaria fluviatilis, 

 and to have been found in one specially favourable locality — 

 which agrees with what I have above stated as to these pecu- 

 liarities being worked under particular conditions. I was very 

 glad to see that he was drawing attention to these variations, 

 as they are very interesting to lovers of our ferns, and should 

 be reported when observed. I think it is a great pity that more 

 people do not cultivate our ferns, as many of the rarer and 

 more delicate ones bid fair to become extinct as the country 

 is cleared and brought under cultivation. It is very interesting 

 to grow ferns from the spores, and it seems to me that this will 

 be the only means of preserving some kinds. 



