European Ferns. 
xxxviii 
book is well suited to those who wish to gain some idea of the characters which distinguish the 
principal groups of ferns without going very deeply into the subject. His later work, “ Historia 
Filicum,” although more detailed, and exhibiting a vast amount of labour, is not likely to be so 
generally useful as the one already noticed : but the introductory chapters contain much 
instructive matter which will well repay perusal, embracing, as they do, sketches of the methods 
of classification adopted by the leading pteriologists, as well as much of personal reminiscence. 
Mr. Smith’s own arrangement he considers to be the most natural yet put forward ; and he 
bases his opinion on the not unreasonable ground that it is founded upon results of the daily 
study of living ferns, and is therefore more likely to be correct than those which are based 
mainly upon the examination of the specimens preserved in herbaria. He very truly remarks 
that it is impossible to ascertain the habit of ferns from herbarium specimens, as only small 
examples can be preserved. “The great botanists of the present day,” he says, “content 
themselves with describing plants from dried specimens, many of which are often small and 
imperfect, and fail to convey the true nature of the plant in its living state.”* Mr. Smith 
adds point to his remarks by stating that Sir William Hooker “made less use than might 
have been expected ” of the fine collection, then amounting to about one-half of the known 
species of ferns, which was then in cultivation in the Royal Gardens at Kew. It can hardly 
be necessary to point out the importance of describing plants from living specimens whenever 
this can be done ; but from the very nature of things this cannot always, or nearly always, be 
the case. For example, Mr. Bentham, the veteran English botanist, and Sir Joseph Hooker 
have been engaged for many years upon their great work, the “ Genera Plantarum,” which is 
now completed so far as the dicotyledonous plants are concerned, and of which the mono- 
cotyledonous are in a forward state of preparation. Of the many thousands of genera therein 
described comparatively few could ever have been seen by the authors in a living state, even 
had they desired so to study them. In the herbarium, dried specimens of plants from the 
ends of the world can be brought together and placed side by side, their affinities and 
relationships traced, and their differences ascertained ; and since such points as colour are of 
little or no scientific importance, comparatively speaking, the botanist can draw up his descriptions 
and identify his plants with perhaps less trouble and greater convenience than any other 
naturalist. If we take up one of the numerous colonial floras which have been issued or are 
in course of publication in connection with the Kew herbarium, at the expense of the government, 
we shall find that the descriptions are for by far the greater part based upon dried specimens — 
often very imperfect ones — which have been collected by travellers or explorers or missionaries, 
and have found a resting-place in one or other of the great centres of botanical work and 
research which are scattered throughout the countries of the world, two of the most important of 
which — the National Herbarium at the British Museum, now transferred to the new building at 
South Kensington, and the Herbarium of the Royal Gardens, Kew — belong to our own country. 
In those comparatively rare cases in which a traveller or explorer is also a botanist, it will be found 
that his collections are enriched by copious notes, taken probably at or just after the time 
when the specimens were collected ; and such notes as these render the work of description 
comparatively easy, supplementing the specimens, as they do, with details respecting the 
life-history of the plant which cannot be ascertained from dried and often fragmentary examples. 
A good illustration of what can be done in this way is offered by the splendid collections of 
the late Dr. Frederick Welwitsch, of which an extensive and fully representative set is in the 
* “ Historia Filicum,” p. 72. 
