it is due, it would appear, that not only did his name remain 

 absolutely unknown and unmentioned in all published 

 Fern records (Dr. Stansfield even never heard of it), but 

 even Mr. Lowe, with whom he corresponded and to whom 

 he sent some of his finds, did not apparently see his way 

 to include such finds in his Fern list of 1890 even 

 anonymously. Neither did Mr. Barlow, as was the 

 salutary custom of his Fern-loving contemporaries, 

 distribute divisions among them and so secure, or assist 

 in securing, their survival as well as appreciation and 

 propagation, the unhappy result being that in all proba- 

 bility the Herbarium in question is now the sole repre- 

 sentative of his labours. Our members, Mr. W. B. Cran- 

 field, Dr. Stansfield, and Mr. T. E. Henwood accompanied 

 the writer and Mr. Green to the Museum, and were equally 

 struck with what they found, while the waiter subsequently 

 went there on several occasions and made a descriptive 

 list of the choicest forms and of the attached notes, which 

 appears m extenso in the Gavdenevs' Chronicle, and by kind 

 permission is reproduced below. 



Enquiries have been made as to the possibility of some 

 of these finds having survived in the late Mr. Benbow's 

 garden or elsewhere at Uxbridge, but these so far have had 

 a negative result, and although trial sowings are in progress 

 of some of the spores, it is a very open question whether 

 half a century is not too long a period for survival of 

 vitality. Mr. Benbow, too, appears to have been extremely 

 unfortunate, having left a number of finds in the train on 

 his way to Mr. Sim's nursery at Foots Cray, while a fire 

 destroyed many on another occasion. 



The following represent the best varieties of the several 

 species concerned, in which the Polystichums are by far 

 the most striking, and are therefore described more fully. 



THE SHIELD FERNS. 

 PoLYSTiCHUM ANGULARE (about 150 Varieties in all). 

 Deconiposituin spkndens, all fine decomposite forms, 



