11 
present purpose to separate them according to a 
botanical classification. 
The cultivated and feral varieties of British Ferns 
(iii) have been enumerated in an Appendix. 
Although the collection of them at Kew is very rich 
they stand in a different position to the collection of 
recognised and well-determined species. Apart from 
their intrinsic beauty, which is often striking, they are 
of considerable scientific interest as showing the range 
of variation due to crossing and seminal reproduction. 
The amateurs and cultivators who have raised them 
have furnished them with Latin names, often cumbrous 
and fantastic, which have received no formal definition. 
They cannot, therefore, be fixed or quoted for any 
scientific purpose ; they have, in fact, the same relation- 
ship to the species from which they have originated as 
Bedding Pelargoniums bear to Pelargonium zonale or as 
the Drumhead and other cabbages to Brassica oleracea. 
