226 VARIETJES OF FERNS IN THE BRISTOL PFSTIUCT. 



general appearance of the frond or plant is decidedly grace- 

 ful, the details being often exceedingly pretty as well as 

 interesting as a study of the vagaries of nature. 



The only other class is the Crested or Eamose ; this 

 (with the exception of the Brachiate or trinervod forms, 

 which require a place of their own) includes all the varieties 

 in which there is an abnormal repetition of parts. At 

 first sight it might appear that cristation, like variegation, 

 was a character that might run through the varieties 

 of all classes, and no doubt this is true to a very great 

 extent ; but there are numy varieties in which the redupli- 

 cation of parts is so pronounced a feature aa to obscure 

 all other characters; by general consent, therefore, it 

 has been long recognised as a separate class. There are 

 varieties which, for distinction's sake, I have named " por- 

 cristate," in which not only is every pinnule crested, but in 

 which even the minuter divisions are crested also. There 

 are, on the other hand, very many cases in which the 

 peculiar character of the frond — plumose, divided, con- 

 gested, crispate, lax, flexuose, cruciate, or interrupted — is 

 perfectly preserved, and the cresting only snper-added ; and 

 heroin, no doubt, lies a difficulty, but as the difficulties in 

 the opposite direction seem so very much greater, it has 

 been found better to established a " Crested Class." 



It is not generally known that a few years since a 

 memorial to the Board of Works was signed by some of the 

 loading British fernists, advocating the formation of a 

 national collootion at Kow, and suggesting a money grant 

 in aid of it. The grant was made, and operations were 

 without delay commenced, Mr. E. J. Lowe, Mr. E. F. Pox, 

 and others contributing some of their choicer varieties. 

 The handsome bequest of the whole of his valuable collection 

 of British ferns recently made to Kew by the late Mr. W. 



