74 



Lygodiiim. This we have since been obhged to do, and quickly 

 found that as early as 1810 Willdenow had described Hydroglos- 

 suin oligostacJiyjun {Lygodhim oligostachyiun Desv.), based on 

 Plumier's figure of 1703, from that island. On comparing 

 Eggers' plant with that plate it matched exactly and so Lygodiiivi 

 gracUc Baker fell into needless synonymy. 



Now we have an even more aggravated case from our Ameri- 

 can northwest coast from which one would naturally be wary in 

 describing new species of ferns, since it has been well collected 

 over since the time of Menzies, Scouler, and Douglas. However, 

 a plant from an Irish greenhouse cultivated from British Colum- 

 bia comes to Kew and it is promptly described as a new species, 

 Woodivardia paradoxa Wright, * apparentl)' without looking up 

 either recent American literature on the subject, or what is still 

 more important, the literature of the past generation. This is all 

 the more inexcusable now, for we have Christensen's admirable 

 Index Filicuni, and while it fails to give the type locality of the 

 species it catalogues, it nevertheless gives citations accurately, 

 so that anyone who wishes to avoid duplication of names can do 

 so with a minimum of extra labor. Since the possibilities of 

 American fern cultivation have become extensive, and we have 

 had opportunity to cultivate Woodwardia radicans of the Old 

 World side by side with the plant of the Northwest, we have 

 been able to see at once, as Mr. W^right has also done, that the 

 two species are absolutely distinct. Instead of dashing off a de- 

 scription of a new species, the first thing the American does is to 

 look up the synonymy and type localities of any species that the 

 writers of the past have needlessly reduced to synonymy. We 

 naturally commence with the Hookerian school of fern students, 

 whose proclivities for lumping species into general synonymy 

 are notorious, and whose work has served to mislead the fern 

 world by their hasty practices. We easily found that two 

 species had been thus reduced : (i) Woodivardia CJuiniissoi 

 Brack. (1854) with a type locality in " Monterey and San Fran- 

 cisco ; also in mountains, on the upper waters of the Sacramento 

 River, California," and (2) Woodzuardia spimdosa Mart. & Gale- 



J Gardeners' Chron. III. 41 : 98. 16 F 1907. 



