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some accidental circumstance of soil, situation, &c. A second incon- 

 venience, under the present system, witli which students have to con- 

 tend, arises from the want of fixity of nomenclature ; authors having 

 described these forms, even in the same species, under different names, 

 totally irrespective of those used by others who have preceded them. 

 A third inconvenience arises from authors having described the same 

 character of variety, when found in different species, by different 

 names, thereby burdening the student's memory with a host of terms. 

 These evils, doubtless, have, in great part, arisen from this subject 

 not having been studied ; it being the fashion with many to consider 

 all monstrosities, i. e., aberrant forms, as outside the pale, and, as 

 such, unworthy the attention of the scientific student; and yel, mor- 

 phologically considered, they are most interesting, not to say impor- 

 tant ; often tending to throw light on obscure points in the economy 

 of species. Furthermore, when such men as Linneus, Willughby, 

 and Ray deemed them not below their notice, surely they are not 

 beneath cfurs. To obviate these inconveniences I beg to propose 

 the following plan : — Let all descriptions of forms of ferns be divided 

 under the following four heads : — 1. Form, or original type. 2. Sub- 

 form, or forms aberrant from some geographical influence, such as 

 climate, &c., and including what are called doubtful species. 3. Sub- 

 varieties, or non-permanent monstrosities. 4. Varieties, or permanent 

 monstrosities. Between these last we shall find some very strange 

 analogies ; the subvariety often appearing as though it were but a 

 link between the variety and original form. I say appearing, because 

 they never, at least as far as I can find, degenerate into one another ; 

 when any change does take place, the subvariety returning to the ori- 

 ginal type, and the variety either degenerating into some other variety, 

 or else also returning to the original form. To meet the last incon- 

 venience, I would suggest, that to each subvariety, variety, and sub- 

 form, no matter in how many species found, but one distinctive name 

 be given, defining that name as species and genera are at present 

 defined ; so that when we find this form, under any species, we need 

 but to the specific and generic names append this distinctive name, 

 in order to render the identification of it easy, and thereby save our- 

 selves the trouble of repeating with every species a probably long 

 description. 1. Subforms would include all forms of the fern depart- 

 ing in a slight degi'ee from the original type, so as to present tangible 

 differences, and yet approaching it sufficiently nearly to be identified 

 with the species generally prevailing through the entire plants of a 

 district ; often returning to the normal form under cultivation, and 



