508 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Spores sown in separate pans from abnormal fronds produced 

 plants like the variety from which they were gathered. 



Spores from a dozen varieties mixed together produced many 

 new varieties, and the more remarkable the varieties 

 selected, the more extraordinary were the results. 



Further experiments on hybrid Ferns and crossed varieties 

 were reported to the British Association in 1865, 18G7, 1870, and 

 1888, but the late Professor Hufcton Balfour was the only botanist 

 who would allow that a cross had been obtained up to the year 

 1885 ; indeed it was difficult even to convince such experimental 

 Fern authorities as the late Thomas Moore and Abraham 

 Clapham, although the latter in 1879 acknowledged he was 

 satisfied, and, what was more to the point, commenced experi- 

 ments and raised some beautiful forms of Polypodium vulgare. 

 A large number of fine varieties have been raised by crossing, and 

 in this respect we are especially indebted to the late Colonel 

 Jones, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Clapham, as well as Messrs. Stansfield 

 and Mr. E. F. Fox, for many of these plants, and also for 

 numerous wild finds ; for the latter we must also acknowledge 

 the successful labours of Padley, Elworthy, Hodgson, Moly, Lyall, 

 James, Wollaston, Phillips, Mapplebeck, Kitson. Thompson, 

 Foster, O'Kelly, Fraser, Praeger, Cooper, Druery, Patey, Fitt, 

 Cowburn, and others. Far more varieties are raised from spores 

 than are found wild, but we get new blood, new forms, and 

 consequently increased vigour from the latter, that adds to the 

 importance of wild finds. 



Some Feins have young plants growing on their fronds, and 

 these are termed " bulbils," yet these young plants are not invari- 

 ably like the parent. In 1865 bulbils from Scolopcndrium Wardii 

 produced strong-growing conglomerate forms, and bulbils on the 

 crested Osmund a regalis produced a dwarf grandiceps, with a 

 more spreading root ; this plant is twenty-five years old, and is 

 here to-day. Bulbils from Scolopcndrium Kehvayi have pro- 

 duced a more diminutive form ; and others from Colonel Jones' 

 polvdactylous divisolobum of A spidium angulare, plants that are 

 not polydactylous.* Ferns that are not usually bulbiferous 



* The beautiful plumose varieties of Aspidium angidare Baldwini and 

 imbricatum, which received ceitificates at the Conference, were from bulbils 

 l rotluced on the rfenbiim of divisolcbam-plumosum. 



