147 



It is to luiglaiid, however, that we must look for the {greatest 

 advance in the systematic study of ferns during the second quarter 

 of tiic past century. W. J. Hooker, afterwards Sir Wilham, 

 the first director of Kew Gardens after Queen Victoria had 

 opened tliem to the public, and father of the present Sir Joseph, 

 who followed his father in that important post in 1865, was born 

 in 1785 and thus was a correspondent in touch with all the 

 earlier writers on ferns of the first years of the century. 



In his earlier years of study. Hooker was associated with R. 

 K. Greville, the distinguished cryptogamic botanist of Scotland, 

 and with him published the elaborate folio in two volumes, Icones 

 Filiciim (1831), besides one or two preliminary papers on ferns 

 and fern allies.* Greville's influence was most salutary in giving 

 to their combined studies what would now be considered a more 

 rational view of the limitation and distribution of species, and thus 

 contrasts most strongly with the narrowly conservative ideas that 

 dominated all the later writings of Sir William and his successors 

 in fern study at Kew. A comparison of a few genera will 

 strongly emphasize this statement. 



Genera 



Species recognized by 



Hooker & Greville 



in 1833 



Species included in the 

 first edition of Synop- 

 sis Filic urn, \%(A 



Species of the Synopsis 

 published subse- 

 quently to 1833 



Ophioglossum. 



botrychium. 



Marattia. 



Dan.ea. 



Angiopteris. 



Osmunda. 



TODEA. 



18 



14 

 10 



5 



2 



12 



3 



10 



6 



7 

 II 



I 

 6 

 4 



2 



3 

 6 



2 



The appointment of Hooker to Kew made possible several 

 opportunities which served to advance our knowledge of ferns 

 and to lay the foundations at that herbarium of its present mag- 

 nificent collection of ferns : 



I. The increased exploration of distant lands made possible 

 by the relation Kew has increasingly maintained towards com- 

 mercial importation of ornamental plants and more especially by 



* Greville & Hooker. I'luinieratio Filicum (I. Lycopodineae). Bot. Miscellany, 

 2: 360-403. 1831 ; (II. Opliioglosseac, Marattiaceae, Osmundaceae). Bot. Mis- 

 cellany, 3 : 216-232. 1833. This work was unfortunately discontinued. 



