Ferns in General. 3 



rachis. These are all the technicalities we need be 

 troubled with, save and except as we go on the names 

 of the ferns themselves. From the sublime to the 

 ridiculous is but a step. I have just made that step 

 while walking through the fern-house to obtain the 

 needful inspiration to write this little book. There I 

 saw my plumy emerald green pets glistening with health 

 and headings of warm dew, and I thought it might help 

 me if I read their names. Here are a few of them — 

 Acrostichum Eequienianum, Alsophila Junghuhniana, 

 Anemia Schimperiana, Aspidium Karwinskyanum, 

 Polystichum Plaschnichianum, Asplenium Gaudichan- 

 dianum, Euphegopteris hexagonopterum, Dictyopteris 

 megalocarpum. You must endure this sort of thing 

 if you purpose giving the slightest amount of attention 

 to ferns, for only a few out of thousands have English 

 names, and to translate the botanical names into English 

 would be very imprudent, not to say sometimes im- 

 possible. But I assure you the names do not spoil the 

 plants, they only compel fern books to be ugly an'd 

 forbidding. Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs was 

 an unamiable person, but my Mohria thurifraga var. 

 Achillisefolia is as sweet a bit of vegetable jewellery as 

 you are likely to meet with in a day's march, and I am 

 sure you will admire, when you find it, Didymoglossum 

 vel Trichomanes radicans. 



