4 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [ Sess. lxv. 



has 20, Hymenophyllum has 23, Trichomanes has 25, 

 Adiantum lias 27, Acrostickam has 33, Ncphrodium has 

 56, As-plenium has 58, and Polypodium has 79, if, the 

 Polypodia alone are more than twice as many as all our 

 species taken together. These are very remarkable facts, 

 and they show how perfectly adapted Jamaica is to that 

 particular form of vegetation. Indeed, when one is intro- 

 duced for the first time to that fern paradise, one feels 

 perfectly bewildered by the number of different forms that 

 are met with on every side, and a residence in the island 

 would require to be somewhat prolonged to enable one to 

 make the acquaintance of even the commoner species. 

 During a part of the time I spent there I had the 

 advantage of having as a companion in fern-rambles a 

 member of our Society, Mr. Neill Fraser, whose knowledge 

 of fern botany is both accurate and extensive, and without 

 whose aid I should not have been able to learn half as 

 much as I did. 



There is one class of ferns that has a special attraction 

 for a botanist in Jamaica, and which he can never 

 sufficiently admire for their great delicacy and beauty, — I 

 mean those that go under the general name of Filmy Ferns, 

 because of the film-like translucency of their structure. 

 They belong to the genera Hyiiienoj^hyllum and Tricho- 

 manes. From the three species which occur in this 

 country one can form no idea of the grace and loveliness 

 of the tropical forms, and dried specimens, however care- 

 fully they are dried, give but a poor conception of their 

 appearance when seen in their natural habitats. Two of 

 our British species occur in Jamaica, one of them, Hymeno- 

 phyllum Tunhridgense, on decaying logs in forests at an 

 altitude of 5000 to 7000 ft., and the other, Trichomanes 

 radicans, common throughout the island on moist ground, 

 from a low elevation to the highest slopes of the hills. 

 Hymenophyllum unilatercde, Bory, is not a Jamaican or 

 West Indian plant. There is nothing more interesting, 

 wlien botanising in a foreign country, than to find a plant 

 which is rare and much-prized here occurring day after 

 day in many different localities, as we find Woodsia ilvensis 

 in Norway, or Lloydia serotina in Switzerland, or Tricho- 

 7nanes radicans in Jamaica. There is another species of 



