H FERN GROWING 



from a hybrid, or even greater odds ; still, in the case of a 

 Fern where a million spores can be sown, if five or ten seed- 

 lings are raised, it is to all intents and purposes a case of 

 sterility, although not absolute sterility. This has been tested 

 by the author over and over again with hybrid Ferns, and 

 certainly not more than one or two plants are raised from 

 fifty thousand spores, whilst the spores from crossed varieties 

 are equally fertile with those of the parent. Now, as a number 

 of other persons also sowed this hybrid over and over again, 

 we may take the experience gained from this one Fern as 

 conclusive. The author sowed unsuccessfully a hundred pans, 

 i.e., ten each year for ten years, and there could not have been 

 less than a million spores. Messrs. Dickson & Co., of 

 Chester, and Messrs. J. R. Pearson, of Chilwell, failed to 

 raise a plant ; the late Mr. Carbonell, of Usk, from repeated 

 sowings, raised seven plants ; the late Colonel Jones, four ; 

 the late Mr. E. F. Fox, two ; and the late Mr. Barnes, of 

 Milnthorpe, about thirty plants.* Had these spores been 

 from crossed varieties there would have resulted many thou- 

 sand plants. Do not these experiments prove that Aspidiuin 

 aculeatum and Aspidiuin angulare are distinct species. 



Hybrid species are somewhat less rare than is generally 

 supposed. We have the one known as Nephrodium remotum, 

 a hybrid between N. Filix-mas and A^. spinulosum, and this 

 has been sown at least a hundred times without producing a 

 single plant, although recently some seedlings were observed 

 on a flower-pan in which this hybrid was growing, and, strange 

 to relate, they eventually proved to be remotum. Other hybrids, 

 natural finds, have been discovered, and each of these will 

 eventually be described ; but it may be remarked that there 

 is the same difficulty in the raising of spores from them. 

 Although we may have more or less repetition in giving a 



* Half these plants, however, are evidently from accidental spores of another 

 Polystichum, which reduces Mr. Barnes's thirty to about thirteen, and perhaps less. 



