FEES ALLIES OF NEW ZEALAND. U 



Some persons profess to have a great aversion to the scientifie 

 names of plants, and say — " Why do you not give simple English 

 names that we could understand, instead of the unpronounceable 

 names you employ ?" The remark is expressive only of ignorance or 

 indolence. Anyone who has taken the trouble to study the subject 

 at all knows that it would be next to impossible to devise a system 

 of English names which woi^ld be at all suitable. If any are desirous 

 of undertaking such a work, I would recommend them to try their 

 hand, say, to begin with, on the Australian gum trees (belonging to- 

 the genus Eucalyptus, of which the " Flora Australiensis " enumerates 

 135 species), or on the Wattles (genus Acacia, of which 293 species- 

 are described in the same work). But in reality there is, after aU, 

 no such difi&culty, especially when we consider how many purely 

 technical names of plants have come to be used familiarly, even by 

 the most unlettered. It will suffice just to mention, inter alia^ 

 Anemone, Ranunculus, Gladiolus, Dahlia, Chrysanthemum, Fuchsia, 

 and Geranium, not one of which is an English name. 



To turn now to the principles on which the classification of our 

 ferns is conducted. Formerly, in arranging plants, special points of 

 structure were selected as characteristic of the various classes, groups, 

 and divisions, and by these arbitrarily-selected characters all plants 

 were classified. Any such system of classification — which fixes 

 on one or more distinctive features and ignores all the rest — 

 is termed an artificial system, and the most celebrated is that of" 

 Linnseus, called after him the Linnsean system. This not only 

 superseded all those which had been in use before it, but remained 

 the only system in general use till very lately. As regards ferns 

 and other flowerless plants, this system had very little application, as 

 it dealt chiefly with flowering plants. 



If, however, instead of taking a single character, or even a group 

 of characters, as the basis of classification, we examine into the wholfr 

 life history of our plants, and unite them by their apparent relation- 

 ships into species, genera, families, &c., we shall have constructed a 

 7iatural system of classification. Since the publication of Darwin's 

 " Origin of Species," and the immense impetus given to all biological 

 research by that " letting in of light," it has become more possible 

 every day to attain to a natural classification of plants on a genealogical 

 basis. This desirable consummation is still a long way ofl^, however,. 



