8 9 



batch of this myself, and found even the prothalli to be- 

 thick and fleshy masses instead of the usually thin laminae, 

 A third still more mysterious case is that of P. aquilina 

 idiceps depauperata, which appeared spontaneously and 

 simultaneously in five different and isolated places in 

 Messrs. Birkenhead's nursery at Sale, near Manchester. 

 This had lax, pendulous fronds, repeatedly branching into 

 slender, depauperate, tasselled ramifications. All the 

 plants were alike, and yet they occurred in widely separated 

 houses at one and the same time as chance seedlings, 

 They resembled no other known variety at all, and the only 

 theory that can be formed is that somewhere, at the place 

 where peat or leaf-mould had been taken and supplied to 

 the nursery, a wild sport of the type existed or exists, 

 whose spores had thus been imported into suitable quarters 

 for development. This was eventually lost to cultivation. 

 In the former case we have a feasible theory, but what 

 can we say for Adiantum Luddemanianum, that extra- 

 ordinary ramose and crested form of maidenhair so long, 

 known in cultivation ? This originated in a French 

 nursery, and was found growing in the soil under the 

 staging of a greenhouse by Mr. E. Schneider, who chanced 

 to pay a visit. Some plants of A. capilhis veneris had 

 been grown in the nursery, but the plant in question was 

 the only fern visible. It was a robust clump, and speedily 

 changed hands, as may be imagined, the owner of the 

 nursery simply regarding it as an interloper. The 

 presence, under the circumstances, of such an extra- 

 ordinary and unique " sport " which the solitary plant 

 evidenced was a mystery indeed. Another instance, 

 presenting new features in the specific direction, occurred 

 some years ago in Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons' nursery at 

 Chelsea, in the case of Todea gvandipinnula, assumed to be 

 a form of Todea supevba, or possibly a hybrid between 7 . 

 Fraseri and T. liymcnophylloides, as plants of these were 



