59 



more adapted to discussion, because it involved a theory 

 which is open to challenge. " Nature versus Culture in 

 Fern Variation " was the title adopted, a title which I 

 admit at the outset is open to criticism, because Nature is as 

 much at work with plants under culture as with plants which 

 grow wild and altogether independently of man's efforts or 

 doctoring, while the variation, too, should not have been 

 limited to ferns, since the whole tenor of my argument to 

 come is applicable to all plants and not merely to one 

 family, and I consequently claim to cover a wider field 

 than such title justifies. 



So much by way of preamble, and now to my object 

 proper, which I propose to demonstrate mainly by submit- 

 ting the very tangible medium of actual Nature prints of a 

 considerable number of remarkable fern varieties found 

 perfectly wild on these islands. These prints, I may add, 

 were the outcome of much loving labour on the part of the 

 late Colonel A. M. Jones, of Clifton, who made our British 

 fern varieties his study for many years, and to whom and 

 Mr. Lowe, the collection known as the Carbonell collection 

 at Kew is largely due, Mr. Carbonell having caught the 

 fern fever from Colonel Jones, who, furthermore, aided him 

 very materially in the subsequent splendid results. Prior, 

 however, to specially referring to these prints, I should like 

 to point out that this particular hobby of fern hunting, i.e. 

 variety hunting has, I believe, no fair parallel in connection 

 with any other family of plants, so far, at any rate, as 

 concerns its results, and the care with which these results 

 have been recorded, as in the case before us. The nearest 

 to a parallel perhaps exists in the case of orchids, new 

 forms of which are assiduously sought for in their habitats 

 all over the world with well-known results, which also go 

 far to strengthen the theory I advance, viz. that plants vary 

 quite as much, and as widely under purely natural con- 

 ditions as they do under culture — and that the apparent 

 difference is due solely to the following causes : 



First, as regards varieties found wild, (i) The wild 



