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As a result of this, at the time when the British 

 Fern varieties began to attract attention (towards the end 

 of the first half of the nineteenth century), there was 

 certainly a considerable number of exotic varieties, some 

 introduced from abroad as wild finds, but mostly acquired 

 by selection, in the way indicated, from the offspring of 

 these. At this time, however, when the British Fern 

 pioneers became more and more inspired in their researches, 

 by new discoveries in the ferny regions of Great Britain 

 of forms which far and away transcended in beauty the 

 normal specific ones with which they were associated, 

 we must note, to judge by the early catalogues which a 

 -few nurserymen issued, that the really valuable forms were 

 few as compared with eccentric ones, which nowadays 

 are ignored except as souvenirs. Nature, if we may so 

 personify the great Creative Power which underlies all 

 natural phenomena, living or inanimate, in the invention 

 and production of varietal forms of Ferns, as of other 

 forms of life, produced many which may be regarded as 

 thoroughbreds, that is, such as are symmetrically beautiful 

 in make and characterized throughout on a consistent 

 plan, but in addition to these, in a large number of cases., 

 she produces imperfect and unsymmetrical or eccentric 

 types in which the varietal influence is evidenced in a 

 wayward and irregular fashion. As a consequence, on 

 the principle of heredity, both these classes, the constant 

 and the inconstant, produce corresponding offspring, and, 

 as a rule, the perfect or symmetrical varieties come fairly 

 true to type, while the progeny of eccentric forms vary 

 greatly, reproducing their peculiarities even on exaggerated 

 lines, no two plants being counterparts of each other. 

 Some of these also are peculiarly apt to multiply so freely 

 as to become veritable weeds. The better class of types, 

 it is true, also vary, but as a rule this means only a 

 greater or less development of the special character, the 



