42 FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



duced; only one half-dozen out of the 52 species 

 described by Dr. Hooker in his " Flora Tasmania" 

 being unknown in our gardens, while of the Aus- 

 tralian ones about a third are still wanting to complete 

 our collection, and one of these is the extremely rare 

 Platyzoma microphylla, found by R. Brown on the 

 borders of the Gulf of Carpentaria during Flinders 

 voyage an extremely neat little Fern, with rigid 

 pinnate fronds a foot long, and hardly one-eighth of 

 an inch broad, having minute oval pinnules, with 

 revolute edges and powdery beneath, growing in tufts 

 from short creeping rhizomes. 



I have now traced the progress of the introduction of 

 exotic Ferns to the gardens of this country, and shown 

 that many novelties have yet to come. No doubt, 

 more or less of them will from time to time be intro- 

 duced, as they are eagerly sought after by nume- 

 rous amateurs. Select private collections are thus 

 formed, in many cases consisting of rare and unique 

 plants; but, in the course of time, changes in private 

 establishments take place, and thus collections of 

 Ferns get dispersed, and species are often lost to the 

 country. It is, therefore, only to such public esta- 

 blishments as that of Kew that we have to look to 

 for the preservation of special collections. As there 

 is no law or rule defining what kinds of plants should 

 or should not be grown in public Botanic Gardens, 

 the matter resting entirely with the Director or 

 Curator, some families of plants are often more 

 favoured than others, although all are of equal merit 

 in a botanical point of view. To a certain extent, 

 the Fern collection at Kew is a proof of this ; it so 

 happens that both Sir W. J. Hooker and myself had 



