EDITORIAL 



The Gardening Worlds of London, takes excep- 

 A BRITISH tion to The Fern Bulletin's recent statement that 

 view the ideal collection of ferns is one which contains 



representatives of each species from as many- 

 localities as possible, and fears that we may be encouraging 

 collectors to root out our rare species. In conclusion it observes: 

 " If there are less than two hundred species of ferns in North 

 America, north of Mexico, not a few of which, we suspect are 

 rare, how many dozens of species would there be in a dozen years 

 if all the fern 1 students' could get a single specimen each ? What 

 is it all for? What do the fern students want to do with the 

 knowledge they are so eager to amass ? If there is healing or 

 medicinal qualities in any parts of the ferns they so carefully up- 

 root, press, mount and study, they might collect and sow spores 

 to get stock and otherwise. If not, if it is knowledge for its own 

 sake, I'd rather they than me." This may be assumed to reflect 

 the general opinion in England regarding any part of fern-study 

 that does not consist of cultivating and multiplying varieties. 

 The trouble with our contemporary is that it views the situation 

 without due regard to the fact that "circumstances alter cases." 

 Our country is big and comparatively new, and we have not yet 

 arrived at an exact knowledge of our ferns. We must still collect 

 and study. If our two hundred species were assembled in a space 

 no larger than England, and all our fern collectors let loose among 

 them, some fears of their extinction might be entertained ; but 

 fortunately our fern-flora presents few or no instances of stations 

 so limited in area and at the same time so accessible as to make 

 their extermination probable. While the Englishman seeks his 

 plants in some single wood, bog or crumbling castle wall, the 

 American pursues the same, or similar species, over thousands of 

 square miles of forest, swamp and ravine. The former is prone 

 to forget that our two hundred species are scattered through a 

 country about sixty-five times larger than his own. Probably not 

 a single State in the Union contains more than fifty species of 

 ferns, and yet some twenty of these States are each as large or 

 larger than England, while several are from two to four times as 

 large. We mention the foregoing, not by way of boasting, but to 

 show how difficult would be the task of rooting out our species. 

 The rare ferns are usually confined to one or two States and in 

 localities so far removed from railways that only those with 

 abundant time and means could afford to collect them. And 



