368 IMPROVEMENT IN THE ARRANGEMENT OF FERNS. 



equall}? objectionable, that it is no longer practically useful to struggle 

 against them. Only let it be recollected that Phegopteris, Dryopteris, 

 Thelypteris, Oreopteris, were formed in the early times, and when 

 Pteris was not a genus but an old general name for a fern, and they 

 have all been received only as specific names. The objection therefore 

 did not applji-to them, and compounds of received generic names being 

 justly condemned. Sir Jas. E. Smith was right in his objection to 

 Cystopteris, and in his position had good authority for changing it. 

 The correction has failed through the wrong judgment of others, but 

 the law of priority has no application in such a case, and respect is 

 due to the learning and taste of the great botanist, who would in time 

 have checked an evil practice. 



I shall conclude this paper with a note in respect to the proper 

 naming of our Canadian Aspidiinse, which is called for by the differ- 

 ences of opinion and practice amongst our best botanists. Without 

 presuming to condemn the course pursued by others, I may venture to 

 explain and defend that which, not without careful consideration, I 

 have myself followed. Dr. A. Gray, in a former edition of his valuable 

 Plora of the Middle and Northern United States, which is employed 

 bv so many of our Canadian botanists, divided our Aspidiine ferns 

 between Dryopteris (Bory) and Polystichum, employing this last name 

 in the limited sense now generally given to it, for Aspidiinse with a 

 centrally attached indusium and free forked venation. Lastrea has 

 been generally adopted in preference to Dryopteris, otherwise this 

 method seems to me the right one; but the learned author, in his later 

 editions, has recombined these genera with Aspidium. In a recent 

 number of the Canadian Naturalist, a much esteemed friend, who is 

 learned in the literature of ferns, as well as an enthusiast in their study 

 in their native haunts, and an excellent judge of their minutest varia- 

 tions, attempts to restore Polystichum in Roth's sense, which would 

 include all our Aspidiince, except Cystopteris and Onoclea, if indeed 

 this genus belongs to Aspidiinae. He thinks Roth's name has the 

 right of priority, the date of the Flora Germanica being the year 

 previous to the part of Schrader's Journal containing Swartz's paper 

 establishing the genus Aspidium. It is generally thought^ though 

 these eminent botanists worked independently, and might each justly 

 claim originality, that Swartz's paper was communicated before the 



