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EECENT INFORMATION CONCERNING SOUTH AFRICAN 

 FERNS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. 



By T. R. Sim, F.L.S., 

 Conservator of Forests, Natal. 



(Read February 28, 1906.) 



Plates IV., V. 



When in 1892 I prepared a handbook on " The Ferns of South 

 Africa," I carefully examined practically all the herbarium material 

 available in South Africa, and with some assurance ended the Preface 

 with these words : u I do not anticipate that many more species of 

 ferns will ever be found in Cape Colony, but the whole region north 

 of the Orange, Vaal, and Umfolozi Rivers is still, botanically, almost a 

 terra incognita, and doubtless contains many still unrecorded species." 



Further on it is stated, " It would be most misleading to say that 

 the species which have been recorded from the Orange Free State, 

 Transvaal, Kalihari, Matabeleland, and Mashonaland are all that 

 exist in them, or even in any way representative of what does exist 

 in them ; and the records from these parts are merely given here as 

 a quota towards the much fuller knowledge of these districts which 

 another decade will likely give us. A more correct definition of the 

 area which has been in any measure satisfactorily examined would 

 restrict it to a belt of country, less than 100 miles wide, stretching 

 all round the coast from the mouth of the Orange River to the 

 northern border of Natal — 1,500 miles or thereby. To this might 

 be added the Karroo region, which is known to have only a very 

 limited number of species of ferns, and some of these peculiar to it." 



Further investigation has proved this to be the case. The northern 

 colonies have proved much richer in ferns than the previous lists 

 indicated ; the coast colonies remain nearly as they were. 



After an interval of thirteen years the additional species of ferns 

 and fern allies to be recorded from Cape Colony, Natal, and Zulu- 

 land, taken collectively, number only seven, viz., Adiantwn sul- 

 phureum, Nephrolepis exaltata, Lygodium scandens, Ophioglossum 

 nudicaule, Ophioglossum lusitanicum, Lycopodium dacrydioides, and 

 Isoetes Wormaldii, and no proof has come to hand that any species 

 then described was included in error, or should not hold specific 



