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Combinations of Varieties in Ferns. 
Dr. Kinahan made the following statement: —“In the paper read by 
me at our last meeting, I stated that on one point I was still in doubt, 
viz., how far varieties combine inter se. Since then I have been 
enabled to arrive at the following conclusions on this subject, oppor- 
tunely indeed, as it completes the scheme I was endeavouring to lay 
before you:—I find that these combinations do take place occasion- 
ally, and that they, with a very few exceptions (more I am inclined to 
think seeming than real), take place only between the sub-groups of 
the same group, ¢@.e. between variety and variety, and sub-variety and 
sub-variety. These conclusions, as well as those laid before you on 
former occasions, were all confirmed by examinations of, I believe, 
the two best collections of the kind in England, viz., that of Dr. H. 
Allchin, in London, and that of G. B. Wollaston, Esq., in Kent. 
Through the kindness of both these gentlemen, I have been much in- 
debted both for information regarding the plants and by the oppor- 
tunity afforded me of examining forms, many of them unique. In Mr. 
Wollaston’s collection there is a form of hart’s-tongue, raised by him 
from seed, which well illustrates the combination of forms. In 
it the lower portion of the frond represents the var. laciniatum, while 
the apex represents the var. cristatum. In one frond this was shown 
in a remarkable manner, the stipe was cleft, one portion was dimi- 
nished to a fibrous hook, about a quarter of an inch long, the other 
bore a frond, the base marginate serrated and the apex divided into 
two, the one division cristate, the other reduced to a branched lash of 
bare fibrils. The establishment of this fact clears up the only diffi- 
culty in arranging the varieties I met with, establishing an additional 
class of mixed forms. Thus, the Athyrium found in Joyce Country 
by Robert Gunning, and figured by Newman, as well, I believe, as 
the form found by Mr. A. Smith, near Belfast, are to be referred to a 
form laciniato-cristatum, being a combination of laciniatum and 
cristatum.” 
Athyrium Filiz-foemina. 
Dr. Kinahan exhibited a beautiful form of Athyrium Filix-foemina, 
Newman, obtained in June, 1854, near Castlekelly, County Dublin. 
In it the segments of the pinnez were pinnatifid; the indentations 
entire at their edges, and bearing the sori in the angle; the spore- 
cases projecting beyond the edge of the frond, which, added to 
the bulging forwards of the substance of the pinnule, gave the plant 
