147 



wardia radicans, as compared with many others. Hence it 

 would appear that netted veins form an obstacle in this 

 direction by complicating the tip growth aforesaid, and 

 this may also underlie the complete absence of any such 

 tendency in leaves proper generally, while the longitudinal 

 venation of the monocotyledons is, as w r e have stated 

 above, also unknown in fern fronds, and is obviously a 

 bar to any great variation in foliage in that division of the 

 vegetable kingdom, since, except in the direction of size, 

 it is conspicuous by its absence. In both fern fronds and 

 leaves of dicotyledons we find great variation in the way 

 of fallings, fringes, and deeply cut edges, which on 

 examination we invariably find to be induced by a 

 lengthening or multiplication of the veins, and a conse- 

 quent carrying of the leaf tissues beyond the usual limits. 

 See, for example, the frilled and fringed Hartstongues, 

 Primulas, Cyclamen, etc. In the palms, lilies, grasses, 

 and the entire tribe of their kind, there is not, and 

 apparently cannot be, anything of this sort ; the veins all 

 run straight from end to end of the component leafage, 

 and all they can do is to grow longer. 



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



BRITISH FERNS. 



Although the species of British Ferns, which are 

 popularly known and grown in thousands of gardens, 

 may be numbered on the fingers, and indeed, in the vast 

 majority of cases, consist but of four or five kinds, viz. 

 the Common Male Fern, the Lady Fern, the Broad 

 Buckler Fern, the Shield Fern and the Hartstongue, there 

 are really no less than forty-four species, representing 

 fifteen genera, indigenous to the British Isles. A certain 

 number of these, it is true, hardly lend themselves to 

 general garden use as decorative plants, presumably 

 owing to their small size and the difficulty of imitating 



