FERN GROWING 9 



vantage has been taken of this to produce a number of 

 crossed varieties. Sterile Ferns will again be referred to. 



There are two distinct Fern workers — the hunter after 

 wild finds, and the raiser of seedlings ; among the former 

 there are those who care but little for varieties, and devote 

 their energies to the discovery of new habitats of species. 

 The late Professor Hutton Balfour used to say that he was 

 accustomed to treat Ferns as species, that he passed over 

 the varieties without caring to distinguish any varietal forms. 

 The author remembers some twenty years ago ascending Ben 

 Lawers with him, and whilst he was diligently hunting for 

 Woodsias he found on his hunting-ground no less than four- 

 teen very distinct varieties, chiefly of the mountain form of 

 Nephrodium spmulosrim, and that he expressed surprise that 

 he had not recognised these departures from the normal form. 

 A good botanist recognises at once each species without any 

 very close examination, and it is this that causes varieties not 

 to be recognised, unless the form is a very distinct departure 

 from the ordinary type. The discoverers of varieties are 

 therefore a distinct class of observers, who have accustomed 

 themselves to this particular close examination, which has 

 produced many interesting results. Such abnormal varieties 

 as the crispum form of the Scolopendrium and the Cam- 

 bricum form of the common Polypody were recognised 

 before the birth of the present century ; but many other 

 equally remarkable varieties are modern discoveries, and this 

 is owing to a large increase in the number of those who 

 have devoted themselves to this particular branch of the 

 subject, whose search has been so thorough as to spread over 

 the length and breadth of the land, leaving very few localities 

 unexamined ; as an example, Mr. James Moly remarks that 

 some years ago he rarely returned home without treasures, 

 but that now the same localities yield very few new varieties. 

 Some localities are much richer in abnormal forms than 



