245 



they may develop on flat fan-like lines, or with spherical 

 corymbs with many grades between. As a rule, the 

 pinnae and minor divisions of a fern frond are replicas 

 on a smaller scale of the frond itself, as is well 

 seen in those forms known as ahasilohttm or medio- 

 deficiens. There the lobes of the pinnae next the middle 

 of the frond are reduced or lacking, leaving an open space 

 down the centre and in good forms also, in conformity with 

 the rule aforesaid, down the centre of the pinnae itself, 

 forming a pretty feature. Correlated with this, if we 

 examine the frond itself, the lowest pinnae are often absent 

 or reduced, showing that the influence pervades the plant. 

 Nature, however, ignores hard and fast lines, and hence 

 with a few crested varieties the minor divisions may be 

 well crested and the frond tip less so, or even not at all. 

 Thus it is with the several independent finds of P. ang. 

 gvacile cristatum, wherein the pinnules are well fanned, the 

 pinnae well crested, and the tip is only minutely divided. 

 It is somewhat curious that despite the fact that our best 

 plumose divisilobe forms of P. angidave, viz. the Jones and 

 Fox section, have been raised more than once from a merely 

 decomposite wild find, none of such a type have been found 

 wild, though the parent of them, P. ang. decompositiivi 

 splendens, must have scattered millions of spores in the 

 locality where it was discovered. Nevertheless, the first 

 time the spores were sown under cultivation a batch of these 

 beautiful ne\v forms resulted, so different from the parent 

 that neither Col. Jones nor Dr. Fox could credit their 

 origin until a second sowing produced similar results, thus 

 removing all doubt. There is, indeed, extremely little 

 evidence that very marked "sports," i.e. such as show 

 great departures from the normal lines, are the outcome of 

 gradational forms, i.e. forms of similar but less marked 

 character. Naturally when a good *' find " is secured the 

 locality is carefully searched, but there is no record of 

 successful endeavour to find linking types between such 



