i8 



plumose Polystichums which I raised from the unique 

 " Baldwinii," and which bears a circle of eight yard-long 

 fronds of most delicate and upheaped dissection, rivalling 

 even its incomparable parent in fine cutting and eclipsing ail 

 its other relatives in its rare faculty of perfecting its tips 

 under glass, which the secticn to which it belongs, viz. the 

 Jones and Fox divisilobes, are terribly prone to fail in doing. 



The next most prominent specimens, and in some respects 

 the most remarkable of all, are of the new "gracillimum " 

 type raised from P. acideatum pttlchevviimim, particulars of 

 which I need not repeat, as they have already been detailed 

 in the " Gazette." Now the particular point which strikes 

 me in these several connections, and more particularly in 

 the first and third, is the enormous contrast between these 

 results and their commencement as spores. It must be 

 remembered that these results in my own Fernery repre- 

 sents but a very small proportion of the actual ones, which 

 now exist in other collections as well, since they have 

 become so widely distributed, particularly the " superbum " 

 Lady Ferns, both by division and by subsequent sowings* 

 that no collection of note is without specimens. 



Now carrying my memory back, I see myself sitting years 

 ago at my microscope, surveying a small glass slip, with a 

 somewhat clouded surface, a mere brownish smear as it 

 were to the naked eye, but which under the lens resolves 

 itself into a scattered host of tiny oval bodies, which cannot 

 be individually distinguished without such aid. That is 

 all, a breath and they are blown away, and the finger tip 

 could wipe them all off and hardly show a stain. The 

 parent from which these spores have been gathered is of 

 course "a good thing" or we should not sow it, but our 

 object is merely to multiply it as such with a recognised 

 possibility of some improvements chancing to crop up, but 

 never a dream of what really does arise. They are sown 

 with the usual precautions against disturbance and strays, 

 and in course of time the young plants appear and com- 

 mence to show character. But what character ? Treating 



