58 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
find out which among the various plants they actually meet with are 
those which Mr. C. B. Clarke "should expect to meet with" under 
the impossible circumstances supposed ? We can see, however, that a 
sound definition of "an indigenous plant " really underlies that comical 
egotism of the three III. No doubt, the plants already in this 
country before cultivation commenced were the truly indigenous flora 
of the island. But how are we to know these apart? It is to be 
feared that Mr. C. B. Clarke's hypothetical expectations will not prove 
the practical sieve wherein to separate those indigenous plants from 
the remainder of the mixed flora now found on the surface soil of 
Britain. The American Mimulus luteus is given as an indigenous 
plant of the Andover district, — surely by mistake ? This plant could 
hardly have been expected to occur in Hampshire many centuries be- 
fore the discovery of America. 
One other instance of our author's own facts being amusingly in- 
consistent with his decidedly expressed convictions we are still tempted 
to introduce here. The fronds of "Ferns are very variable in outline 
and division, and how to use them for good specific characters is a 
difficulty too familiar to fern-lovers. What will Mr. Newman or pteri- 
dologists in general say to the following averment that all of them 
have been looking the wrong way ? " In this order," writes Mr. 
Clarke, " the barren fronds alone supply the pinnules in their normal 
form, those on the fruiting frond§ being in reality degradations or ar- 
rested developments, and therefore eminently variable, as is evident 
not merely in Lomaria^ but in such plants as Lastrcea Oreopteris, 
Lastrcea Filix-mas, Athyrium Filix-foemuia. Many of the difficulties , 
which are met with in these genera arise from the undue amount of 
regard paid to the form of the pinnules on fruiting fronds." 
Mr. Clarke's ' List of Andover Plants ' supplies a curious commen- 
tary on his own text above quoted. The list includes twelve species, 
all certain as to the specific names, with the single exception here 
cited, namely, "658. Lastrcea cristata? Sylvan, rare. Faccombe 
Wood. I have only found barren fronds of this plant." Now, if Mr. 
Clarke had found only "fruiting fronds," the doubt would have been 
quite consistent with the rule he inculcates in the paragraph quoted. 
But it seems that the only instance where he needs to apply the 
specific name interrogatively happens to be that one where he has met 
with " barren fronds " only. Likely enough, he has been puzzled by 
an example of L. spinulom in a non-fruiting state. 
