—ii 9 — 



of ferns as applied to all varieties, with the wild finds of which 

 the gardeners have had nothing whatever to do. What would 

 such a botanist do if in his rambles among the wild roses he came 

 across a Marechal Niel as a wild sport? That is a fair parallel 

 to some of our best wild finds as compared with the normal 

 types, and he would be a singular man, I opine, in more senses 

 than one, if he turned up his nose at it as a mere variant and 

 held his tongue for ten years without describing it. I am grati- 

 fied to the editor for holding all his abnormal specimens at my 

 disposal, but, reading between the lines, I fear they would 

 embrace no acquisitions from my point of view, or he would not 

 be so ready to part with them. I hope sooner or later he will 

 come across a thoroughbred and become thereby a convert to my 

 theory, that constant and symmetrical variations are fully as 

 much, if not more, entitled to both lay and scientific attention 

 than the normal specific forms from which, by some" occult 

 process, they arise under natural conditions. 



[It is doubtless as difficult for Mr. Druery to understand our 

 position in this matter as it is to understand his. How a student 

 of ferns can care for what might be termed abnormal variations 

 is beyond our comprehension. The student is always interested 

 in normal variations, if we may so describe the common, slight 

 variations in form and texture due principally to ecological 

 factors ; in fact, it is necessary that we take all such into account 

 in order to get a correct average of the species ; but to give ser- 

 ious attention to forked, crested, plumed, tasselled and befrizzled 

 specimens of ferns, which are manifestly due to the slipping of 

 a cog somewhere in Nature's machinery, is quite out of the 

 question. We grant that some of these attain forms that merit 

 admiration for their beauty, or oddity, as showing what Nature 

 can do in the way of leaves, but we maintain that were these 

 forms animal, instead of vegetable, they would excite only 

 feelings of repulsion. Now, the student of fern species is quite 

 inclined to think of these "freaks." as he calls them, much as 

 others would if they were animal. The botanist may admire 

 the form, hue and perfume of the gardener's rose, but this is no:: 

 the rose he cares to study. In the early numbers of The Fern 

 Bulletin, upward of sixty American ferns have been put on 



