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a reliable descriptive catalogue of known varieties of 

 British ferns at that date. The total number described is 

 1,859, to which must be added a considerable number of 

 independent finds of similar forms, and figuring con- 

 sequently under the same names. I have been through 

 that list, and, analysing it, I find that without reckoning 

 these repeats there are no less than 1,119 wild finds, as 

 against 740 different forms raised from such finds and 

 distinct enough for separate naming, i.e. a ratio of sixty per 

 cent, wild as compared with forty per cent, cultivated. 

 Another important fact in this connection is that the 

 common forms of the species have been utilised for a long 

 time in gardens by the million, and thus to a certain extent 

 must be ranked with cultivated plants, but only one or two 

 examples are known of varieties being found among such 

 plants, and even in these cases it has transpired that the 

 plants had been brought in indiscriminately from wild 

 habitats, and that even these finds may reasonably be 

 assumed as involuntary importations and not due to 

 cultural care. As you will presently see from the prints, 

 these "sports" are not in any case "incipient breaks" 

 which have to be worked up to become good and distinct 

 varieties ; they are often finished productions, and in many 

 cases the best efforts of the selective raiser have failed to 

 better them. On the other hand, in other cases the usual 

 result of improvement by selection has been attained, but 

 always and only from a fair start given by Dame Nature's 

 unaided hand. 



We see, therefore, that in ferns, at any rate, the capacity 

 for sporting is by no manner of means dependent upon 

 culture, and, as a fern-hunter with some successes, I 

 cannot agree for one moment that these sports are due, as 

 some scientists think, to any effects of the environment or 

 attempts in the organism to adapt itself thereto. The 

 "finds" grow under precisely similar conditions as the 

 normal forms around them. A thousand seedlings line an 

 earthen dyke faced with rough, unhewn stones ; their 



