6 FEENS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



next as the largest cdntfibutors, fifteen taving been 

 introduced from the former and twelve from the latter 

 country ; while of the remaining sixteen, four appear 

 to have come from the East Indies, four from the 

 Cape of Good Hope, -three from New Holland, and 

 one from St. Helena, — making in all eighty-three 

 species. 



The nest catalogue of garden plants worthy of 

 notice is the "Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis," 

 published in 1818, only five years after the " Hortus 

 Kewensis," by Mr. Sweet, the Superintendent of the 

 then celebrated nursery of Mr. Colville, at Chelsea. 

 In it I find an enumeration of one hundred and eight 

 exotic ferns ; but this work, like the similar more im- 

 portant "Hortus Britannicus," brought out by the in- 

 defatigable Loudon in 1 830, and which contains no less 

 than three hundred and thirty exotic Ferns, includes 

 not only a considerable proportion of bad species, 

 but also a large number that did not really exist 

 in British gardens, many having been entered without 

 authentic evidence, and others added upon the mere 

 expectation that they might shortly be introduced, — 

 expectations which, in many cases, have not been 

 realized to this day. No reliance can therefore be 

 placed upon either of these works, and I cannot 

 accept them as authorities. 



During the latter part of the eighteenth century and 

 the commencement of the nineteenth, th« only pri- 

 vate individuals who turned their attention, with any 

 amount of energy, to the introduction of new and 

 rare plants, were the long- and far-famed nurserymen 

 at Hackney, the Messrs. Loddiges; and to them 

 we owe the greater part, if not the whole, of the 



