348 



THE CROSSING OF FEENS. 



known as "donsnin" — two more marked forms could not 

 have been selected. In his first sowing he was rewarded 

 with four plants as narrow and symmetrically cruciate as 

 Wakeleyanum, but with all the coriaceous texture, the 

 glistening colour and decurrent pinnules of P. ac. deusum ; 

 and on repeating the same experiment ho was rewarded with 

 two other plants. A grander form does not exist among 

 British ferns — the most convincing proof of which lies in 

 the simple fact that even people quite ignorant of ferns 

 hardly ever pass by the plant which Mr. Jjowe kindly gave 

 me, without remarking, not a little to my disappointment, 

 that it is tlie inost striking plant in my collection ! Tlio 

 judgment passed by Mr. Lowe on this form is, that it is 

 barren, and so the plant with which he has himself experi- 

 mented may bo ; but I have equally good grounds for knowing 

 that the plant ho gave me is not so, for it has been proved 

 by myself and others to bo easy of reproduction from spores. 

 If this distinction between two of those plants be roal, it 

 will be recognised as a most instructive fact ; and I should 

 also mention that a batch of seedlings, raised from another 

 of Mr. Lowe's four plants by Mr. Carbonell, were, without 

 exception, cruciate but prcmorso and dwarf. Nor is it 

 without interest in connection with this matter to mention 

 that Mr. E. F. Fox once raised from a magnificent plant of 

 P. ac. donsum an abundant crop of plants almost entirely 

 premorse and dwarf. But, it may be said by some, "After 

 all, this only proves that P. aculeatum and P. angularo are 

 forms of the same species." If so, I will simply ask them 

 to define clearly and fully what a species is. 



Subsequently to this, two other instances of a clear cross 

 between these two species have occurred. Mr. E. F. Pox, 

 from a sowing of a very marked form of crested angularo* 

 * Cristatum, WoUaatoii, No. 10. 



