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The probability is that he had heard vaguely of a decom- 

 positum splendens as the parent and afterwards jumped 

 to the conclusion that it must be his own find of this name. 

 Both Mr. Cranfield and the late Mr. Druery tried to test 

 the matter by sowing again spores from Moly's find. Both 

 raised a large number of seedlings but in neither case was 

 anything produced which at all resembled a plumose 

 divisilobe. The present writer has in his possession a 

 letter from Col. Jones in which he refers to " my decom- 

 positum splendens " as the parent. Now Col. Jones found 

 a number of decomposite forms of angulare and it was at 

 one time a standing joke that whenever he went fern -hunting 

 with Moly or Wills or Padley he " always found a decom- 

 positum." Now it is not difficult to find a decompositum 

 during a day's hunting in Somerset or Dorset or Devon, 

 and probably most of these finds were afterwards discarded, 

 but it is more than likely that he would keep the best and 

 sow from it. There is evidence that he actually did so, for 

 I find in my old note-book an extract copied at the time 

 (September 20th, 1889) from a letter of Mr. Fox (in reply 

 to a special inquiry) which states that ' ' decompositum 

 grande was found at Torquay, 1870-72 ; decompositum 

 splendens was a seedling raised at Iona House, Clifton, 

 by Col. Jones from a wild find of his own!' It is thus 

 established that Col. Jones himself found wild the grand- 

 parent of his plumose divisilobes and also himself raised 

 from that plant the immediate parent. Mr. Fox's part in 

 the work was that he actually raised the plumose divisilobes 

 from spores given to him for the purpose by Col. Jones. 

 The Colonel and the "doctor" (Mr. Fox was a medical 

 man but did not call himself Dr.) shared the plants between 

 them and wished equally to share the credit, or rather — 

 like the perfect gentlemen they both were — each wished 



