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possible, their rarity has precluded their appearance 

 among the fossil remains alluded to. Another fact, and 

 one somewhat more to the point, is that it is under man's 

 selective care that some of the most extraordinary forms 

 have originated, and amongst these must be classed the 

 fringed forms we have in view. The most remarkable of 

 these belong to the species of Scolopendrium or Harts- 

 tongue, and from their history we gather that under 

 natural conditions their extreme capacity for fringing 

 would hardly be likely to appear, since it is only brought 

 out by close Wardian case culture. On the other hand, 

 one of the two wild finds from which our examples sprang 

 was 5. v. crispum Dvummondice, found many years ago by 

 Miss Drummond near Falmouth, and this, even under 

 ordinary culture, sends up fronds of two sorts, one long, 

 narrow, and smooth-edged, but frilled and tasselled and 

 repeatedly curved, switchback fashion in the plane of the 

 frond, while the other fronds are similar in general 

 character, but with the edges fringed throughout with long 

 slender projections, which are translucent at the tip, and 

 when cut off and layered extend into prothalli, which yield 

 typical plants in the normal way. Here, therefore, we 

 have a fringed form which originated naturally as such ; 

 in the second case, however, the natural wild find was of 

 most unlikely type, S. v. undulato rigidum, a form which as 

 its descriptive name implies is only slightly frilly and of 

 stiff habits. The edges are quite smooth. Messrs. Stans- 

 field, however, on sowing its spores found that it per- 

 sistently yielded a percentage of quite different progeny, 

 viz. with thin papery fronds deeply frilled and beautifully 

 fringed throughout. These, though assuming thus a true 

 plumose character, retained partial fertility, and hence in 

 time a fimbriate section was established, known as S. v % 

 Stansfieldii, which furthermore assumed more or less heavy 

 crests, which differentiated the plants still more from their 



