28 



time, but fairly true at others, for which the only explana- 

 tion is, we think, seasonal influence of a little understood 

 character. A. f. f. Clavissima on which apospory was 

 first discovered, has never, we believe, reproduced the large 

 local pear-shaped excrescences which led to the discovery. 

 It has been maintained by some authorities that all sports 

 are due to hybridisation or crossing, by which the normal 

 specific type of growth is interfered with, with the result 

 that a sort of compromise is effected involving the change 

 observed. No thoroughgoing student of variation can, 

 however, accept this theory. One fact alone suffices to 

 contradict it, viz. that the new characters are rarely, if 

 ever, specific ones, attributable to neighbouring plants. 

 Cresting or tasselling, to wit, has never been recorded as 

 found as a specific character, and yet so many abnormal 

 Ferns present that peculiarity that the power of sporting 

 in that peculiar direction appears common to all genera. 

 In Great Britain, as in other countries, some genera are 

 only represented by a single species, and yet these single 

 species, Athyfium fUix-fcemina, Scolopcndvium vulgar* , 

 and Blechnum s pi cant, for instance, have been very 

 generous in spontaneous wild sports. It is curious, indeed, 

 that with such abundant evidence in disproof, such a 

 theory can still be advocated by botanists of repute. 



Chas. T. Druery, V.M.H., F.L.S. 



FERNS, HORNED AND THORNED. 



One of the most curious types of variation in Ferns is that 

 which embraces the varieties known under the several 

 names of cornutum (horned), truncatum (cut short), 

 excurrens (running out), peraferens (pocket bearing), 

 spinosum (^spiny), and possibly several others which we 

 have not come across, but with which their owners or 

 raisers have seen fit to dignify them. Naturally it is 





