6 FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



next as the largest contributors, fifteen having been 

 introduced from the former and twelve from the latter 

 country ; while of the remaining sixteen, four appear 

 to have come from the East Indies, four from the 

 Cape of Good Hope, three from New Holland, and 

 one from St. Helena, making in all eighty-three 

 species. 



The next catalogue of garden plants worthy of 

 notice is the "Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis," 

 published in 1818, only five years after the " Hortus 

 Kewensis," by Mr. Sweet, the Superintendent of the 

 then celebrated nursery of Mr. Colville, at Chelsea. 

 In it I find an enumeration of one hundred and eight 

 exotic ferns ; but this work, like the similar more im- 

 portant "Hortus Britannicus," brought out by the in- 

 defatigable London in 1 830, and which contains no less 

 than three hundred and thirty exotic Ferns, includes 

 not only a considerable proportion of bad species, 

 but also a large number that did not really exist 

 in British gardens, many having been entered without 

 authentic evidence, and others added upon the mere 

 expectation that they might shortly be introduced, 

 expectations which, in many cases, have not been 

 realized to this day. No reliance can therefore be 

 placed upon either of these works, and I cannot 

 accept them as authorities. 



During the latter part of the eighteenth century and 

 the commencement of the nineteenth, the only pri- 

 vate individuals who turned their attention, with any 

 amount of energy, to the introduction of new and 

 rare plants, were the long- and far-famed nurserymen 

 at Hackney, the Messrs. Loddiges; and to them 

 we owe the greater part, if not the whole, of the 



