1 X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



In consequence of trade collectors and importers of 

 new plants being desirous of bringing them into early 

 public notice, names are given them without having 

 first taken the precaution to ascertain whether they 

 are not already named and described in Botanical 

 works ; thus names frequently appear in Nurserymen's 

 Catalogues, as new, without descriptions, or even their 

 native country given.* Many of such introductions 

 are, however, from time to time described in the Gar- 

 dener's Chronicle by Mr. T. Moore, whose knowledge 

 and writings on ferns are sufficient to warrant their 

 adoption as new species. I have, therefore, in the 

 present addenda, omitted many of these provisional 

 names. 



In the plant catalogues of Nurserymen who make 

 ferns a special object of trade, besides the enumeration 

 of specific names, a great number of what are called 

 varieties are also recorded, and their prices affixed, of 

 which Mr. Stansfield's Catalogue contains the names of 

 nearly 500. These consist of abnormal forms of a few 

 British species, principally of Asplenium FiliM-fcemina, 

 Lastrea Filix-mas, PolysticJium aculeatum, Scolopen- 

 drium vulgare, Lomaria Spicant, and Polypodium 

 vulgare, to which numbers of new forms are yearly 



* It should be made a special rule that all importers or pos- 

 sessors of supposed new plants, before offering them for sale, should 

 have them examined by some competent authority, for which there 

 is now ample means in the National Botanical Establishment of 

 Kew, either by examining the living plants in the garden, or in 

 the Herbarium, or by books in the library, or the Herbarium in the 

 British Museum, which now contains my Fern collection. 



