1/ 



PriEFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 



T HAVE endeavoiu'ed in this Edition to briefly cliavacterize and fit into 

 tlieir places the new discoveries and the plants found upon fuller 

 information to have been inadequately dealt with in the first. A con- 

 siderable number of new species have been described by Fee and othei's, 

 which arc, in my view, mere forms or synonyms of plants already 

 inserted. It was never intended to make this Synopsis a resume of 

 synonyms, because fern-synonyms are now so many that a mere catalogue 

 of names and references would fill a book far larger than this ; but by 

 far the greater part of the new names not cited here will be found to be 

 dealt with in a paper of mine on Brazilian Ferns in the Proceedings of 

 the Linnean Society, which is not printed yet, but I presume will be eai-ly 

 in vol. xiv. 



J. G. BAKER. 



Kew, April 2Sth, 1S73. 





