302 



anything and everything, if he would do his work as it should be 

 done. 



It would appear, then, that we had entirely overlooked this pretty 

 little fern ; the evidence, I confess, is strong against us ; but yet I am 

 not quite so sure that this has really been the case either in Mr. 

 Bloxam's instance in Leicestershire, or my own at Coleshill Heath. 

 Plants certainly do sometimes start up on a sudden in a new locality, 

 and as it were spontaneously, or at least nobody knows how. I have 

 elsewhere recorded (Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 70) the spontaneous 

 appearance of Epipactis latifolia in a newly-made plantation on my 

 premises. Instances, indeed, of this plant's spontaneous appearance 

 in similar situations have so repeatedly come under my observation, 

 that I almost dare venture a wager, that I will make a new planta- 

 tion, and that in the course of a few years the Epipactis shall make 

 its appearance there of its own accord. When I speak of the spon- 

 taneous appearance of a plant, I beg to be understood as not intend- 

 ing to express by that term anything like the unphilosophical notion 

 of what is called "spontaneous generation" in the animal kingdom. 

 I simply mean the appearance of a plant of its own accord in a situa- 

 tion where it was not used to grow, and in a way that one cannot 

 account for : 



" nullis hominum cogentibus, ipse 



Sponte sua veniunt." 



I will mention another instance, occurring also on my own premi- 

 ses, and within fifty yards of this house. Some years ago I took in 

 a small bit of ground, comprising but a few square yards, from a very 

 old piece of turf, for the purpose of making a little thicket ; this bit 

 of ground was planted, among other things, with gorse and broom ; 

 when these shrubs were grown up, I was greatly surprised at finding 

 among them some fine plants of Orobanche major (or elatior, I am 

 not now sure which). How did the parasite come there ? I do not 

 think it likely that the seed should have been wafted to the spot by 

 the wind ; for, to the best of my knowledge, the plant does not grow 

 in this, or any one of the adjoining parishes. The nearest place 

 in which I have observed it is seven or eight miles distant. Some 

 phaenogamous plants then, it seems, appear from time to time spon- 

 taneously in new and unexpected localities. Cryptogamous plants, 

 it strikes me, .and especially ferns, are still more likely so to do. 

 The seeds of ferns, as every one knows, are extremely minute, and 



