FERN GROWING 15 



detailed history of the various papers on the crossing of Ferns, 

 still it has been thought desirable to show the gradual advance, 

 as evidenced by the papers read at the British Association, and 

 at the Fern Conference of the Royal Horticultural Society ; and 

 also to compile a list of the varieties that have been awarded 

 certificates, pointing out which were wild finds, distinguishing 

 them from raised varieties by footnotes for these records. This 

 is more desirable as we have to refer back many years. 

 Although 1867 was the year in which the author presented 

 his first paper on this subject, he had exhibited numerous 

 varieties at the British Association Floral F6te held in 

 Nottingham in 1866, and had, in fact, raised a large number 

 of varieties as early as 1857, and some even earlier than 

 this. 



At the Dundee Meeting of the British Association in 

 1867,* the author read a paper on "The Abnormal Forms 

 of Ferns," in which were shown the various abnormal forms 

 that species will assume, and said, "It was a singular fact that 

 the varieties of the species have many characters in common, 

 and that a certain law of form extends through all our 

 species, the more usual forms being crested, crisp, imbricated, 

 confluent, ramose, acuminate, narrow, plumose, interrupted, 

 depauperate, and congested, and moreover we have the mul- 

 tiple of this, or the commingling of two or three characters 

 in one frond, such as the narrow-crisped, the multifid-crisped, 

 or the narrow-multifid as examples. In raising duplicates 

 from spores, singular accidental spores have been produced, 

 and a new method of obtaining varieties detected." In speaking 

 of the difference between hybrid species and crossed varieties, 

 it is said in the same paper that " hybrids can be distinguished 

 from crossed varieties, inasmuch as hybrids of species are 

 unproductive, whereas the varieties raised from a species can 

 readily be reproduced by spores." 



* See page gi, British Association Report, 1867. 



