14 



I will take the year from April 1 895 to March 

 1 896, as being the year which covers my resi- 

 dence in the island. At Kingston, near the sea- 

 level, the rainfall was 22-3 inches; at the Hope 

 Botanic Garden, at an elevation of 600 feet, it 

 was 50-98 inches ; at the Castleton Botanic 

 Garden, nearly the same altitude, it was 108 '8 8 

 inches ; at the Hill Gardens, which lie 4,900 

 feet above the sea, it was 122*45 inches ; and 

 on the Blue Mountain peak, at a height of 

 7,423 feet, it was 176*86 inches. And though 

 some months are very much more rainy than 

 others, there was no month in which the rain- 

 fall, at least on the higher grounds, was not 

 considerable. It would seem, then, that Jamaica 

 possesses all the requisites necessary for the 

 luxuriant growth of such a plant as the Fern 

 —shade, moisture, and a temperature which 

 varies at different elevations from heat to com- 

 parative coolness. A fitter home for this par- 

 ticular class of plants could not be conceived. 



But, as a matter of fact, are Ferns found 

 there in such numbers and variety as to warrant 

 us in regarding their abundance as something 

 phenomenal ? Let us institute a comparison 

 between Jamaica and the British Isles. But 

 observe, first of all, that the area of Jamaica is 

 only about 4,000 square miles, a little less, i.e., 

 than the area of Inverness-shire, including in 

 the county the islands that form part of it. 

 Now in the whole of the British Isles there 

 are, according to the last edition of the London 

 Catalogue, only twenty genera of Ferns, con- 

 taining forty-seven species, and of these genera, 

 eleven have only one species apiece. In Jamaica, 

 on the other hand, there are, according to the 

 most recent authority, Mr. Jenman, of Deme- 

 rara, no fewer than forty-five genera, with 473 

 species — all within that small area, about equal 

 in size to Inverness-shire — more than ten times 

 as many as occur in thewhole of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. Many of the genera, too, are very 

 rich in species. The genus Cyathea has sixteen 

 species, Pteris has twenty, Hymenophyllum has 

 twenty-three, Trichomanes has twenty-five, 

 Adiantum has twenty-seven, Acrostichum has 

 thirty-three, Nephrodium has fifty-six, Asple- 

 nium has fifty-eight, andPo/^W/z/#z has seventy- 

 nine, i.e., the Polypodia alone are more than 

 twice asmanyasall ourspecies taken together. 



There is one class of Ferns that has a spe- 

 cial attraction for a botanist in Jamaica, and 



which he can never sufficiently admire for 

 their great delicacy and beauty, — I mean those 

 that gounder the general name of Filmy Ferns, 

 because of the film-like translucency of their 

 structure. They occur in greatest profusion at 

 a height of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet. Below 

 that altitude you will find more species of 

 Trichomanes than of Hymenophyllum, the latter, 

 with the exception of H. polyanthos and one or 

 two others, almost all growing at least above 

 4,000 feet, whereas T. punctatum, T. sphenoides, 

 T. Krausii, T. sinuosum, T. Bancrofti, Tscandens, 

 T. radicans, and T. rigidum can all be found at 

 comparatively low elevations, their range ex- 

 tending, however, in most cases far up the 

 mountain sides. The happy hunting-ground 

 for the filmies is then from 5,000 feet right up 

 to the summits of the hills, amid the forests 

 which cover much of the mountain surface of 

 Jamaica. The atmosphere among the trees is 

 close and muggy. The soil under our feet and 

 the tree-trunks around us are saturated with 

 moisture — moisture which never dries up, for 

 the damp vapours at that height are always 

 wrapping the hills in their folds,and the direct 

 rays of the sun cannot penetrate. In such a 

 spot it is not to the ground, but to the trees, 

 to the trunks and the branches, that you look 

 for the filmies you have come to seek. For one 

 growing on the ground there are a hundred on 

 the trees. On the wet surface of the cracked 

 and fissured bark the Fern spores find an ideal 

 place to germinate. The stems of some of the 

 Tree-Ferns, in particular, being clothed with 

 aerial rootlets, or covered with a rough draffi- 

 ness, form the very kind of home that the 

 tender filmies love to dwell in. Let us look 

 about us, then, and see what there is to reward 

 us for coming all the way from Scotland into 

 this strange, far-off, solitary place, where the 

 whistle of the steam engine has never been 



! heard, and Nature reigns alone, as she has done 

 from the creation of the world. Here, on this 



: Fern-stem, is a mass of dark-green Trichomanes 

 trichoideum, surely the daintiest plant that 

 grows,the delicate fronds rising from its thread- 

 like, creeping root-stock, and cut intosegments 

 fine as hairs, bearing the diminutive fructifica- 

 tion, which is yet perfect in all its parts — cup, 

 sori, and protruding seta. To find this gem of a 



j plant alone, in all the ideal grace of its fairy-like 

 fronds, is recompense enough for the expendi- 



