5 ^ 
European Ferns. 
THE PARSLEY FERN. 
CRYPTOGRAMME CRISPA, Br. 
have here a fern which is the only species of the genus in which it is 
placed, and which may thus be supposed to stand out from its allies with 
especial distinctness. Genera, arbitrarily defined by naturalists for purposes 
of classification, are of course based upon certain resemblances or differ- 
ences between plants or other natural objects, and their recognised extent 
is largely regulated by the views of different scientific men. As is the 
case with species in a yet more marked degree, what one man recognises as a 
distinct type, and then calls by a new and distinctive name, may be regarded 
by another observer as merely a new form belonging to a genus previously 
described, while a third savant may go yet further, and say that the plant, or 
may be the object under consideration, is not only no new generic type, but 
has barely any claim to rank as a distinct species. This divergence of opinion leads our 
professors in two different directions; and while the bent of one man’s mind induces him to 
recognise and describe as distinct, plants which have many points in common, another may go 
to just the opposite extreme, and err by his custom of referring almost every novelty to some 
well-known type, of which it must be considered a form or variety. The two opposing schools 
are characterised respectively in scientific slang as “splitters” and “ lumpers,” the former finding 
very thorough-going representatives in the describers of some hundreds of forms of our common 
Blackberry ( Rubits fruticosus), while a reference to some of the more recent Colonial Floras will 
show that “lumping” has its advocates and practisers in very high quarters indeed. As a rule, 
indeed, it may be stated that those who study only the flora of a limited area, or who devote 
their attention to a small group of plants, are more likely to detect and lay stress upon 
comparatively small differences, and so to multiply species, while those who take a wider range 
and have to deal with the flora of a large province, or the plants of the whole world, are given 
to take very broad views of what constitutes a species, and to make their definitions so wide as 
to include a considerable range of variation. Two of our leading English botanists may be 
cited as offering an example of this. Professor Babington, in his “ Manual of British Botany,” 
maintains a large number of species which Mr. Bentham, in his “ Handbook of the British 
Flora,” will not allow a higher rank than that of varieties ; the former has for the most part 
confined his attention to the British and European flora, while the latter has devoted himself to 
research in a wider field, and has probably passed under his notice the greater number of known 
plants. Each course of action has its good and bad points, and probably the old maxim, in 
medio semper tulissimus ibis , will apply to this as to so many other things. 
But, after all this explanation, it will be found that there is a vast difference in the extent 
of genera. The largest genus of plants known is probably Senecio : this is estimated to contain 
about a thousand species, of which our common Groundsel ( Senecio vulgaris ) is one of the most 
familiar and ubiquitous examples. Other genera are monotypic, containing but. one species ; 
and of these we have an illustration in the Parsley Fern, to which we will now return. 
