Tune 25 



I0Q& 



GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



405 



NATURE VERSUS CULTURE IN FERN VARIATION. 



THE following is the text of the paper read by Mr. C. T. Druery, F.L.S., at the 

 meeting of the Horticultural Club on the 14th inst. :— 



As a fairly long period had elapsed since I inflicted a paper about our 

 popular British ferns upon the members of the club, I ventured timidly to hint 

 Twx secretary that a further dose might be administered now without immediate 

 fetal effects, and suggested " Fern Revelations by a Fern Reveller " as a possibly 

 Lin? title* Mr. D'Ombrain, averse, probably, to snuffing out an old member, 

 nd reiving upon the lassitude usually accorded to those afflicted with a mama, 

 kindly acquiesced. Upon this encouragement I dropped the jocular title held out 

 as a bait and determined to spring my ideas upon the club in a severe form, and 

 one more adapted to discussion, because it involved a theory which is open to 

 challenge. " Nature versus Culture in Fern Variation " was the first title adopted, 

 a title which I admit at the outset is open to criticism, because Nature is as much 

 at work with plants under culture as with plants which grow wild and altogether 

 independently of man's efforts or doctoring, while the variation, too, should not 

 have been limited to ferns, since the whole tenor of my argument to come is 

 applicable to all plants and not merely to one family, and I consequently claim to 

 cover a wider field than such title justifies. 



So much by way of preamble, and now to my object proper, which I propose 

 to demonstrate mainly by submitting the very tangible medium of actual JJature 

 prints, a considerable number of remarkable fern varieties found perfectly wild 

 on these islands. These prints, I may add, were the outcome of much loving 

 labour on the part of the late Colonel A. M. Jones, of Clifton, who made our 

 British fern varieties his study for many years, and to whom and Mr. Lowe, the 

 collection known as the Carbonell collection at Kew is largely due, Mr. Carbonell 

 having caught the fern fever from Colonel Jones, who, furthermore, aided him 

 very materially in the subsequent splendid results. Prior, however, to specially 

 referring to these prints, I should like to point out that this particular hobby of 

 fern hunting, i.e. variety hunting had, I believe, no fair parallel in connexion with 

 any other family of plants, so far, at any rate, as concerns its results, and the care 

 with which these results have been recorded, as in the case before us. The 

 nearest to a parallel perhaps exists in the case of orchids, new forms of which are 

 assiduously sought for in their habitats all over# j world with well known results, 

 which also go far to strengthen the theory i advance, viz., that plants vary 

 }uite as much, and as widely under purely natural conditions as they do 



under culture— and that the apparent difference is due solely to the following 

 causes : 



First, as regards varieties found wild. (1) The wild sports are usually solitary 

 specimens of their kind, and it therefore needs a special and more assiduous search 

 by practised eyes to discover them. (2) They mostly occur in wild and 

 unfrequented places, where chance discovery is reduced to a minimum. (3) They 

 are usually associated and mixed up with enormous numbers of the normal forms, 

 and these, as already stated in No. 1, require the expert's eye to detect them ; and 

 (4) very few people indeed have either the extreme patience or persistence the 

 ittrch demands, coupled with the requisite knowledge to enable them to detect 



lp n on ^1*16 other h&nd j 



are grown under precisely 

 opposite conditions, all favourable to discovery of any sports which may occur. 

 Thus: (1) they are sown and grown in trade hands from beginning to end, by 

 men who are practically experts in discrimination, and profit largely by their 

 discoveries. (2) They are raised without admixture with other species in varieties, 

 »nd in the process of transplanting, re-potting, and bringing on generally, are 

 pnctically inspected individually many times, so that a difference can hardly escape 

 »«ice ; and finally (3) most important factor of all, cultivated plants are rarely 

 normal ones ; they are themselves, with few exceptions, the result of selection, i.e, 



'po rt still ni P o"re gS hm<X ' M * S univer3a,, y know «. extremely liable to 



michtT faCtS i . U f e * n th .^ the ca P acit y of P lants { °* sporting or varying 

 SmuStJS 15 if ^ *? ^ eir Wil ? State aS iD their titivated state, and yet thl 

 3E! £ lT US T U * P rac ! ica,, y in the f«™er case despite their abun- 

 SK?w2J| S ■ ^ ou ^ meb f ing th « b S f Which g^erally exists that the 

 »Cto cW,J of m - UCed by culture ;, which lead * on to other theories, that it 

 find the Z 6 !- en ™° nm ? nts « well as treatment. For the same reason we 

 "est d cWc ™ "E" T K *? usti ^f** as '> rden varieties" certain ferns of a 



1 v cultivation and K« PSeUd ,° ? as 5"*****' 38 if thev had been a ™ed at 



these Hi? 1 un »l quite recently this idea of the artificiality, so to speak, of 

 ^end when ZT W t0 utter neglect by «rf cntific ^ thou P h ^ j 

 kwoie'a «£. &7 «? ?^ rd / d ^ their true "g h t « purely natural soo?ts they 

 *^\^ci\L ^? { ? r thC evolution i st and afford^ splendid field (Jr 



W 0 f orSc m ^t K £ r - m ° re amODg ?!? Vagaries than amo "g th * tee* 



*e abnormal forml kL • ^T* 15 apt , t0 reveal her secrets - As soon, indeed, as 

 :.j " u »«nai torms bemn to he nrnnorW et„ri;»d t .l- i_ t . ' 



disco 



— and 

 direction — on 



forms 



•everal 



was found to £ X. v ? We know them ' was a m yt h • 



species are knol^ ► ^ h Very f TO ent,y * Thus seve ' al ™etiL o 

 fionds on aSl^LmS^^ P , fronds « and conversely 



* r ^ng found that sr^oric Y ? P n buds ' while to ca P *e climax, 



5^". and akho ue ^ the Prothalli of severa 



°^ed, the poSbili J DOt g f ?! 1C ,T h ° f P erfectir, g ^ the cases he 



E*?i°n as SalUorfT fSS??**^ °l "f Cxistin S from generation to 

 t^^pSSt^i'^ g step backwards to their cousins the lichens, 



fc^^^ffiTSS^K° t J a111 ^ P'^ced from such highly. 

 *» (Uttre* a»Z.™? Hart s To ngue (Scolopendnum vulearel. and Tli-ono R„Al» 



° UCh ^^gly, in making these remarks, I have 

 » « is not so really, for all the ferns upon 



*-'"^ew, P V" 1 so re ally, for all the ferns 



P^tirm ^1 formal ones, and wild finds or 

 , ^ng sa me characteristirQ . ™a y. • 1 7T " tld M" n g oi wiia nnas 



^ Section of the f "SSti t . hlS , bnD ^ s me \° a comparison in this parti- 



**** both comHi!S^?? tMn ^ Whef * Se . ,ective culture and assiduous 



in 



Where Found," published 



n : i 7». wrecoenised hvoii r ems, ana Where Found 



^^Bn^r^nr, e ^Pf rt ? ^ a reliable descriptive catalogu 



2t, m ^t be "J* * date. The total number described 

 !S^ nn Rcon^n« *. conside » h le number of ind— " - 



*''^ U <«^'ull nc ^ lhat without reckoning these repeats 

 Z?^ ^ourh r " .A' as ^nst 740 different forms rai^ f 



forms 



I have been through that list, 



<H*t th, , ,0rt y I* centTcu Tv3 a 9 ° l S,Xty ^ cent ' wi,d as com " 



^ lh€ ^mmon fc^ Tjf . An ^ ther Jmportant fact in this connection 



■~ ° f the B P CCICS have utilised for a long time in 



gardens by the million, and thus to a certain extent must be ranked with cultivate 

 plants, but only one 0** two examples are known of varieties being found amom; 

 such plants, and even in these cases it has transpired that the plants had been 

 brought in indiscriminate'y from wild habitats, and that even these finds may 

 reasonably be assumed as involuntary importations and not due to cultural care. 

 As you will presently see from the prints, these *' sports" are not in any case 

 " incipient breaks " which have to be worked up to become good and distinct 

 varieties : they are often finished productions, and in many cases the best efforts 

 of the selective raiser have failed to better them. On the other hand, in other 

 cases the usual result of improvement by selection has been attained, but always 

 and only from a fair start given by Dame Nature's unaided hand. 



We see, therefore, that in ferns, at any rate, the capacity for sporting is by no 

 manner of means dependent upon culture, and, as a fern-hunter with some successes, 

 I cannot agree for one moment that these sports are due, as some scientists think, 

 to any effects of the environment or attempts in the organism to adapt itself thereto. 

 The <f finds" grow under precisely similar conditions as the normal forms around 

 them. A thousand seedlings line an earthen dyke faced with rough, unhewn 

 stones ; their fronds peep out from every chink, and here, in the very heart of a 

 clump of the common form, is one of the most diverse fashion conceivable. To 

 get it, it has to be literally sorted out of the bunch of fronds and roots of its purely 

 normal companions, and yet it is not only a thoroughbred variety, tasselled, curled, 

 or what not, but every spore it subsequently bears may breed true as a die, and, 

 under quite different and varied environments, will reproduce the type, to a nicety 

 generation after generation. 



As for fern adaptation to environment, it is quite possible that, had it not been 

 found, it would have been smothered by its fellows, for tasselling, congesting, and 

 dwarfing are always at expense of height, and that means handicapping to a certain 

 extent. In this connection, too, the extreme diversity of the variations should 

 logically imply a great diversity of environment, while, as we have seen, there is 

 none at all. The u sport," too, is. judging by its subsequent true offspring, diverse 

 in character even in the first frond, and hence the sport originated in the very ovum 

 itself, or in the snore which was shed from one of the normal plants around. If 

 the sport existed in the spore, we arrive at a local affection o f the mother-frond, 

 which bore millions of spores, one of which, at any rate, was subtly modified so as 

 to produce a new form ; and here our environmental difference narrows down to 

 part of one frond out of many on the plant, itself one of thousands all growing 

 togeth°r under the same or such similar conditions as could not necessitate so 

 great a change of form as a requisite factor of existence or even as a facility, since, 

 as we have seen, the effect may be adverse instead of favourable. To my mind, 

 this question of variation is an inscrutable one at present, that is, the initial 

 original variation, of which the fern prints I shall show you portray the actual 

 examples. Subsequent variation, to which our selective breeders owe so much, 

 and which represents largely cultural variation, is another matter ; since, leaving 

 aside the variation induced by crossing and consequent conflicts between the ten- 

 dencies of diverse parents, we know that once the normal fetters have been 

 broken, once the little cells have taken, as it were, the initiative of panning, 

 they rarely return to allegiance altogether, and are constantly liable to vary their 

 performance again and pgain, the watchful eye of the cultivator being ever on the 

 alert to guide them in the wished-for lines by drastic weeding out, or profit by 

 their ingenuity when they strike a perfectly new idea. The original start, how- 

 ever, which can transform plants to the extent which I will now exhibit by pic- 

 torial aid, with Nature herself as the artist, is, to all intents and purposes, a 

 M special creation," which the evolutionist leaves, as I think, far too much outside 

 his calculations. (About a hundred Nature prints of wild finds of most of the 

 British species were here exhibited, with elucidatory remarks, many of the types 

 being of extremely advanced character.) 



We have now seen what Nature does and is doing in our sylvan nooks and 

 corners where ferns are in their element, and I think you will agree with me that 

 if fern hunting has no other merits, it has, at any rate, led to a very effective study 

 of what wild plants are capable. True it is that among the hunters and finders 

 we cannot rank one true professional scientific botanist. The research began on 

 purely amateur lines, and only amateurs have caught the fever. With these 

 prints and their attached notes before us, however, the evidence becomes accept- 

 able to the veriest scientist, and I submit they go a very long way indeed to 

 prove my theory that variation altogether is due to something other than culture, 

 and that however great a part the environment has played in evolutionary shaping, 

 it is a fallacy to suppose that " sports n can be imputed to attempts at adaptation 

 thereto. The real cause, to my mind, lies deeper, and is one with that which 

 underlies the evolutionary scheme as a whole, and utterly passes the comprehension 



of man. ^ 



Nicotiana affinis.— What a lovelv pot plant this makes, and even in 48- 

 sized pots it is a most useful subject. Where evening decoration is required, com- 

 bined with fragrance, it should be used. The treatment and culture it - n^s ,s so 

 very simple that I do not wonder at it being so very popular as a window plant. 



^^Sff ^d&f- ^ VThome e td itSi?^ 



wb^ri %S St Grown in 16-sized I pots this nicotiana maVes a 

 „J£ «tr5m7n for norticos front entrances. &c. srd here on dull or rainy da V s a 



SEdthS bE£, ::Ps -S^h,s Castle, R.H.S., Bottesford Vineries, Mttr. 



Messrs Sutton and Sons* Annual Outing was conducted this year 

 withthe usual success, for the firm does all in its power to ensure a good day's enjoy- 

 mem- teSiriSS This year Southampton and the Isle of Wight were selected 

 ^ B n,SnSvind a special train, containing nearly seven hundred passengers 

 eft Reading ^ at half- past sVven a.m., Southampton being reached at the appointed 

 no ,„ Sdf mst nine Arrangements had been made for those of the party who 

 hTrim? toTn^ct die new docks, the warehouses and any of the South Western 

 SlS?£o?E?.t^ also two of the South African liners then in the 

 docks At a quarter to ten a specially chartered steamer left for Rvde, Sandown, 

 Shanklin, and Ventnor, and back while at .half-past ten a second steamer pro- 

 ceeded to Cowes and Tctland Boy. Her Majesty the Queen had graciously 

 consented to permit members of the party to visit Osborne, and as a consequence 

 a large number, including the members of the firm landed at Trinity Pier, and 

 the party were conducted over the extensive and beautiful grounds by Mr. 

 Slater agent to the Osborne estates, and Mr. G. Nobbs, the head gardener. The 

 sea was beautifully calm, and consequently the trips were much enjoyed. Among 

 the party were Mr. and Mrs. Martin John Sutton, Mr. Arthur W. Sutton, M". 

 Leonard Sutton, Mr. M. F. H. Sutton, Miss Kathleen Sutton, Master Phil 

 Sutton, and Master Arthur P. Sutton, 



