QZS23 



LANDSCAPE 

 ARCH. 

 LIBRARY 



PREFACE. 



IN submitting this volume to the notice of those in- 

 terested in the study of Ferns I consider it proper, 

 though at the risk of being considered egotistical, to 

 give a brief explanation of the circumstances that have 

 led to its publication. 



My first introduction to Ferns was in acquiring the 

 names of the common British species. In 1823 the 

 collection in the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, came 

 under my care ; it then consisted of about forty hardy 

 species, British and Foreign, and about the same 

 number of tender exotics, the latter dispersed in various 

 hothouses. In 1825 I arranged the tender ones in a 

 group at the end of one of the then lean-to houses, 

 the space they occupied being 12 feet by 6 feet ; 

 these formed the nucleus of the present great collec- 

 tion. 



New species were occasionally imported, and others 

 raised from spores, the spores being obtained from 

 collections of dried specimens, chiefly from the West 

 Indies, Brazil, and Australia, also from a collection of 



