INTRODUCTORY. 



cation, in 1874, of the " Synopsis filicum," commenced by the late Sir W. Hooker, 

 and completed by his successor in the office of custodian of the Royal Herbarium at 

 Kew, J. G. Baker, Esq., F. L. S. That work contains classified descriptions of all the 

 then known ferns ; but in the interval between its first and third editions several 

 hundred new ferns reached the herbarium and had to be added as an appendix ; and 

 since then several hundred more have arrived ; so that the total number of classified 

 ferns must now exceed 4000, of which about 140 are known to occur in New Zealand 

 and its immediate dependencies, and a few others have probably still to be discovered 

 on its mountains or in other little-known localities. Several have been reported 

 latelv, and will be noted in this book, though possibly I may not be able to give 

 drawings of them ; but it is not yet certain whether they are all new, or merely new 

 forms of known ferns ; though from the descriptions some appear certainly new. 

 There is great diversity in estimating the number of N. Z. ferns. This arises from the 

 fact that nearly all of them vary greatly in different localities, and some persons regard 

 these variations of form as constituting distinct species. Reckoning in this fashion, 

 a list of probably over 1000 ferns might be assigned to the colony ; but there are such 

 continuous links connecting them that there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone 

 who has had good opportunities of seeing the plants and observing the links that the 

 differences are merely variations of form. A gentleman at Christchurch, who has 

 probably collected and grown more ferns than any one else in the colony, lately ex- 

 pressed the opinion that, if all the connecting links could be traced out, the N. Z. list 

 would be reduced to about a dozen plants. Connecting links between ferns, which in 

 one locality seem quite distinct, crop up in another perhaps hundreds of miles distant. 

 It would seem, indeed, as if what are classed as species are often only well marked 

 types : but they serve for classification. The same thing occurs with English ferns, 

 forms of which are branched, crested, and depauperated almost past recognition. I 

 have in cultivation more than twenty perfectly distinct forms of the ',' Lady fern," and 

 an Edinburgh florist advertises a list of eighty ; yet no one who really understands 

 ferns doubts their being really only varieties of the one plant. The tendency of scien- 

 tific men in the present day is to narrow the number of plants as far as possible, with 

 a view to simplifying their classification ; and it is in this way that the names of some 

 of the N. Z. ferns have been changed, because they belonged to sub-genera which, so 

 far as name is concerned, are now merged In the main genera, though the sub-genera 

 are still kept up as an assistance in classification. It is questionable whether, in one 

 instance, a mistake has not been made : whether, in fact, the difference which consti- 

 tutes the sub-genus is not sufficient to justify a separate main genus ; but this, of 

 course, is matter of opinion ; and so long as the question does not prevent the identi- 

 fication of the plants, it is of little moment to us. Some of the N. Z. ferns had not 

 reached Kew when the third edition of the Synopsis was published, or had not been 



