i66 



My " adventures in Fernland " have been pregnant with 

 interest to me. I trust this halting narration of them has 

 not been of too ' boring ' a nature. A hearty farewell 

 greeting to all the fellow-adventurers in our delightful 

 branch of gardening. 



OUR WONDERFUL NATIVE FERNS. 



Considering the fact that in many parts of the world 

 ferns grow on a much more luxuriant scale than they do 

 in the British Isles, the conditions of warmth and humidity 

 being such as to encourage greater development, and 

 bearing in mind that we can only claim about forty-four 

 species belonging to seventeen genera, while some tropical 

 and sub-tropical islands reckon these by the hundred and 

 by the score, respectively, it may be asked in what special 

 respect can the term "wonderful" be applied? The 

 answer to this question may be given succinctly enough, 

 viz. that although we have only forty-four species these 

 species have "sported" to such an extraordinary extent 

 that at least two thousand distinct varieties can be definitely 

 described and catalogued, while five thousand would 

 probably not be an over-estimate of forms which an expert 

 could determine as distinct. A very large number of these 

 '' sports" are far and away more beautiful than the normal 

 forms whence they have, in some inscrutable fashion, 

 originated, so that while for our normal specific forms, 

 pretty as many of them are, it cannot be claimed that they 

 equal in beauty some of the finest exotics, their varietal 

 types in many instances can hold their own with the best 

 of those, while in diversity of type, within specific or even 

 generic limits, the exotic ferns are utterly eclipsed by 

 several of the British species. 



It is, indeed, one of the peculiar wonders in this con- 

 nection that sports have been found wherein the specific 

 type has been modified on lines of which not even a trace 

 has so far been found in exotics, while it may safely be 



