12 FERN GROWING 



impregnation of the flowers by bees) might assist in this 

 impregnation. Spores mixed together have been sown, year 

 after year, since 1851, and a large amount of crossed varieties 

 raised and grown to maturity. Botanists, notwithstanding this, 

 have been slow to acknowledge that these varieties had been 

 produced by crossing. Mr. Moore did acknowledge that he 

 saw the different varieties (the mingling of two forms), but 

 how it had been accomplished he was unable to say. " The 

 blood of each was apparent, but nevertheless it has not con- 

 vinced me," says Mr. Moore, "as regards crossing by impreg- 

 nation." Mr. Clapham, who had repeated these experiments, 

 and had raised some very distinct varieties, also would not 

 believe in crossing Ferns until he had seen a series of varieties 

 of Lady Ferns, having Victoria at the one extreme, and pro- 

 teum (a plant that he had found) at the other. On the strength 

 of his new conviction he sowed the spores of the plumose 

 Cornwall, Polypodium vulgare, known as trichomanoides, with 

 a crested form {bifido cristatum), and from these spores he 

 raised a crested form of the variety trichomanoides. 



Mr. J. E. Mapplebeck, 1866,* Colonel Jones, 1870, Mr. E. 

 F. Fox, 1870, Mr. Craig. 1864, Mr. Moly, 1876, Mr. Barnes, 

 1867, Mr. Forster, 1876, Mr. Clapham, i860, Mr. Elworthy, 

 1873, Dr. Lyall, 1866, Mr. James, 1870, Mr. Hodgson, 1871, 

 Mr. Ivery, 1862, Mr. Stansfield, 1865, Mr. W. H. Phillips, Mr. 

 C. T. Druery, and others (all of whom might be called pupils), 

 commenced raising and crossing spores in the years now re- 

 corded, and were eminently successful, notwithstanding which 

 botanists still held aloof The difficulty of convincing those 

 who receive any departure from preconceived ideas with 

 especial caution has been extremely great. Every argument 

 was met by answers that carried so much of truth in them 

 as to require further proof step by step. One of these argu- 



* The author and Mr. Mapplebeck commenced exhibiting seedhngs at the Royal 

 Horticultural Society in 1868, Colonel Jones in 1870, and Mr. Druery more recently. 



