10 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. LXV. 



you may be just able to keep them alive, without their ever 

 striking away into vigorous growth. Anyone who could 

 discover a method of sending them over to this country 

 in quantity and in a healthy state would find it a paying 

 business ; but it is just as well that it is not worth anyone's 

 while to strip the woods of Jamaica of the rarer species 

 with the object of supplying the English market. There is 

 no doubt that the cultivation of these plants is better 

 understood than it was a few years ago, as a proof of 

 which one may point to the small collection in the Edin- 

 burgh Botanical Garden, where some of the species are 

 thriving wonderfully well. 



If time were of no account one would like, in speaking 

 of the ferns of the high woods of Jamaica, to mention 

 some of the interesting little Polypodiums which grow in 

 positions exactly similar to those of the filmy ferns, 

 dependent from the trunks or boughs of trees. As I have 

 said, the genus Polypodium is a very large one in Jamaica, 

 consisting of 79 species, more than fifty of which grow on 

 trees. Some of the largest ones, as, e.g., P. chnoodcs, 

 Spreng., are very beautiful plants', but to me the most 

 interesting were the smaller ones, growing at a high 

 altitude. I have already mentioned the curious Xi2')liopteris 

 serrulatum, Kaulf., which is really a Polypodium, though 

 the sori ultimately run into one another and form a con- 

 tinuous line. Then there are P. gramineum, Sw. ; P. 

 viarginellum, Sw.; P.ti^icJio7na7ioides,Sw.; P. hasi-attenuatuvi, 

 Jenm.; P. monili/orme, Lag.; the beautifully soft, golden 

 brown P. cultratum, Willd.; P. suspensum, Linn.; P. 

 piloselloides, Linn.; and P. lanceolahim, Linn. Most of 

 these could probably be made to grow in this country 

 alongside of the filmies, but, perhaps, they would be even 

 more liable to damp off, and would require a compartment 

 to themselves. 



Of the general fern flora of Jamaica, of its various kinds 

 of tree-ferns, of its numerous species of Adianium, Pteris, 

 Asplenium, Nephrodium, Acrostichum, which abound in 

 every moist and shady locality, or of the many curious 

 genera that are represented by one species or by a very 

 few, I will say nothing at present, beyond making the 

 general remark that it is amazing to see how freely a large 



