to justify our title of " a delightful hour," no less so for 

 its being largely rewarded by the egotistical feeling that 

 most of the acquisitions are indeed " our very own " in 

 every sense, and that by their propagation and wide dis- 

 semination the whole Fern world is permanently the 

 richer for our successes. 



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



FERN MYSTERIES. 



Everyone who has cultivated and propagated ferns for 

 many years has probably come across some curious and 

 inexplicable results, and, at the Editor's request, I propose 

 to record a few mysterious happenings in my own 

 experience. 



(i) Lastrea remota (A. Braun) is generally supposed to 

 be a hybrid between L. filix-mas and L. spinulosa, or L. 

 dilatata. It is copiously soriferous, but no one, so far, 

 has recorded a successful raising of seedlings from spores 

 sown. About 1870, however, a few self-sown seedlings 

 appeared on the surface of the pot in which a 

 plant of remota was growing in the Todmorden nursery. 

 These were at first regarded as remota seedlings, but, on 

 development, it was found that they were not quite like 

 the supposed parent, although having more resemblance 

 to it than to anything else. They were named provi- 

 sionally L. remota hybrida (the parent at that time not 

 being recognized as a hybrid), and have remained in 

 cultivation under that name ever since, although, now that 

 the parent is believed to be itself a hybrid, the term is, at 

 best, redundant. The idea at the time was that these 

 seedlings were hybrids between L. vemota and some other 

 species. It is, of course, possible that the prothalli of 



