64 



FERN VARIATION.- 



Although throughout the plant world we find innumer- 

 able instances of marked departures from the normal type 

 — that is, the particular and prevalent form which botanists 

 have determined upon as representing the species — there 

 would certainly appear to be a greater tendency to such 

 aberration in ferns than in flowering plants. In this com- 

 parison we can, of course, only consider the foliage, and 

 not the inflorescence, since as regards the latter it is a 

 remarkable fact that throughout all the genera and species 

 of ferns, numerous as they are, and diversified in habit, 

 size, and make, the same type of microscopic inflorescence 

 practically prevails throughout, while in flowering plants, 

 as we know, the diversity is infinite. We can therefore 

 only compare the leaf and the frond, and when we do so, 

 we find that though the forms of foliage proper, i.e. the 

 true leaves of flowering plants, are wonderfully diverse, 

 those of the fern frond, including varietal sports, are not 

 only equally so, but in some respects far more curious. 



Thus, for instance, leaves vary in size and shape and 

 arrangement according to their species, and vary wonder- 

 fully in the way of sports, so that at Kew we may see scores 

 of oaks of precisely the same species, but with leaves aping 

 those of other and different trees altogether, and playing 

 furthermore a sort of fantasia on the oak leaf theme as well 

 in the matter of size and shape. In the acacia we may see 

 the simple leaf merging into a pinnate one, and so on ; and 

 in the cacti and euphorbias the foliage consists of mere 

 rudiments, or the antipodean briar may present it in the 

 guise of prickles only. Amid all these diversities, how- 

 ever, we never find one particular type of variation into 

 which all species of ferns seem capable of sporting, namely, 

 that of forming tassels at the tips of the fronds and their 

 subdivisions. This faculty would appear to be correlated 



-'= By permission of the Gardeners' Magazine. 



