^5 



or "mutations" in situ, and thus ba able to judge of the 

 possibility or probability of their divergence from the 

 normal being due either to "change of environment," or 

 response to the different conditions thereby presented. 



To the best of our belief, obvious as we consider this 

 statement to be, not one of the many more or less eminent 

 botanists who from time to time put forward their theories 

 of variational causes, usually on the lines we have 

 indicated of " change " and sympathetic response, has 

 devoted himself earnestly to the study of the wild sports, 

 or attempted to profit by that of the literature thereanent 

 which has been accumulated for more than half a century 

 by the coterie, which the writer at present represents, of 

 ardent students of our native British Ferns. For some 

 occult reason akin, as we think, to the proverb that u a 

 prophet has no honour in his own country," the mere 

 mention of " British Ferns and their Varieties " seems to 

 scare rather than to attract the truly scientific student, 

 but it is a curious fact that in all the domain of botanical 

 research there is absolutely no family of plants which 

 has been so thoroughly studied in the wild state and 

 from the varietal point of view as the comparatively 

 few species indigenous to the British Isles. Of no 

 other family, too, has such careful record been kept by, 

 it is true, amateurs, but amateurs, largely imbued by 

 botanical knowledge, and who have been careful in 

 the vast majority of cases to collect and preserve, not 

 merely the dead fronds, but also the living plants them- 

 selves as indisputable evidence of the nature of the altera- 

 tions observed. Surely such a fund of data as there is 

 concerning these hundreds, for hundreds exist, of distinct 

 and constant "sports," is worthy of thorough study by 

 those who on deeper scientific lines are studying the causes 

 of these differences, particularly when they are assured 

 over and over again, that at any rate with regard to the 



