PREFACE. 



In submitting this volume to the notice of those in- 

 terested in the study of Perns I consider it proper, 

 though at the risk of being considered egotistical, to 

 give a brief explanation of the circumstances that have 

 led to its publication. 



My first introduction to Ferns waa in acquiring the 

 names of the common British species. In 1823 the 

 . collection in the Eoyal Botanic Garden, Kew, came 

 under my care ; it then consisted of about forty hardy 

 species, British and Foreign, and about the same 

 number of tender exotics, the latter dispersed in various 

 hothouses. In 1825 I arranged the tender ones in a 

 group at the end of one of the then lean-to houses, 

 the space they occupied being 12 feet by 6 feet; 

 these formed the nucleus of the present great collec- 

 tion. 



New species were occasionally imported, and others 

 raised from spores, the spores being obtained from 

 collections of dried specimens, chiefly from the West 

 Indies, Brazil, and Australia, also from a collection of 



