400 FERNS! BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



being no doubt latent in the soil used for tilling the 

 pots. To avoid this it is advisable to bake the soil 

 before using, and to bring it again to its proper moist 

 state by the use of water that has been boiled. 



It is said that spores retain their vitality for a 

 number of years ; in my experience I have no direct 

 proof of this ; but several remarkable instances of 

 plants making their appearance without the spores of 

 the species having been sown, or even an Herbarium 

 specimen having been seen in this country. In the 

 instance of Lomaria Patersoni, a species originally 

 discovered in Tasmania, which spontaneously made 

 its appearance at Kew in 1830, only one specimen 

 was at that time said to be in the possession of Mr. 

 Brown, at the British Museum, which I never saw ; and 

 Allan Cunningham informed me that he never found 

 the plant, and was very much surprised when he saw 

 it growing at Kew. This in time gave specimens to 

 many Herbaria, and living plants to botanic gardens. 

 A similar instance was that of Doodia llcclmoidcs, 

 which made its appearance at Kew in 1835. Other 

 instances might be quoted, such as the appearance of 

 Asplenium stijpitatum, of which two plants spontaneously 

 made their appearance about twenty years ago, and I 

 at first supposed they had originated from the spores 

 from a specimen in my Herbarium of a Luzon plant 

 named by me Neottopteris stipitata; but in time it 

 became evident that the two plants were quite distinct 

 from it, and, like the Lomaria and Doodia, I had never 

 seen native specimens. By what means the spores that 

 produced these plants came to Kew it is impossible to 

 say. In 1829 I found a plant of Ceterach qfficinarurti 

 growing in a crevice of masonry on one of the 



