BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
I I I 
Hooker, in “ British Ferns,” has referred A. Boottii to • 
Nephrodiiim remotum, Aspidimn remotum of A. Braun. In 
“ Species Filicum” it is not noticed, and in “ Synopsis Fil- 
icum” it is made a variety of N. spinidosuni. Mr. Davenport 
is disposed to consider A. remotum and A. Boottii as identi- 
cal, although Milde kept them apart and apparently had no 
suspicion of their identity. Mr. Davenport remarks that a 
specimen in the herbarium at Cambridge, marked A. remotum 
probably by Braun himself, is so like A. Boottii that “if de- 
tached from its sheet and sent out for that fern it would be 
generally received without question.” I have only a cultiva- 
ted specimen of A. remotum from the Leipsic garden, sent 
me several years ago by Dr. Mettenius. In this frond the 
pinnae and pinnules are much like those of A. Boottii, but 
the frond is scarcely narrowed at the base, and the large in- 
dusia are wholly glandless. Milde says of A. remotum ', — 
“The illustrious Braun now considers this plant a form oi A. 
Filix-mas ; nevertheless I venture to defend the old opinion 
and consider it a hybrid between A. Filix-mas and A. spmu- 
losmn. If A. remotmn were really nothing but a form of A. 
Filix-mas, it is hard to understand why this form is not more 
frequently observed in Germany, where A. Filix-jnas is so very 
common. In Silesia, where A. Filix-mas is a common plant, I 
have hitherto in vain sought for A. remotum. But A. remotum 
is perfectly intermediate between A. Filix-mas and A. spinu- 
losum.” 
If hybridity among ferns be admitted, then it would ap- 
