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irregularity in the development of the pinnae as well as in 

 the amount of fingering which they bore ; it is doubtful 

 whether it is now in existence and its loss need not be 

 regretted. In 1862 the Rev. C. Padley found his Vale of 

 Avoca polydactylum, which was a fine grower with sym- 

 metrical fronds so far as the general outline was concerned, 

 but exceedingly unreliable as to the amount of fingering 

 produced — some fronds being fairly well hang with fingered 

 pinnae, while others were normal or almost so. Col. Jones 

 greatly admired this type and from Padley 's find he raised 

 his polydactylum splendens — a great advance upon the 

 parent and certainly one of the best purely polydactylous 

 forms produced up to the present. He was very ambitious 

 of finding a good polydactylum himself, and in 1875, while 

 fern hunting in South Hampshire, he was day-dreaming of 

 this. To quote his own words : "I was just thinking 

 what I should like to find — it was to be a polydactylum, and 

 the best polydactylum ever found — when suddenly there 

 it was before my eyes." This was the history of his famous 

 Hants polydactylum, which he afterwards sowed so per- 

 sistently and endeavoured to cross with almost every 

 uncrested form of angulare, thus laying the foundation of 

 the compound polydactylous angulares now in almost every 

 collection — indeed the difficulty now is to avoid them. 

 He even tried to introduce polydactylum blood into his 

 beautiful plumose divisilobes. When he told me of this 

 I remarked, "What a mercy it was that you did 

 not succeed. " Since his time, however, the plumose 

 divisilobes have become infected with polydactylism and 

 it must be admitted that the results are, in some cases and 

 at some times, exceedingly beautiful. Among them are 

 P. ang. div. pi. polydactylum H. Stansfield, div. pi. disseclum 

 and, perhaps most striking of all, the form which I call 



