A SPLENIUM. 
*7 
or two instances of it in plants far more widely separated than the two ferns which suggest 
the topic. Here, at any rate, the plants resembling each other belong, at least, to the same 
family ; but we find among the Conferee a tree, the Sahsbuna (or Ginkgo) adiantifolia , which 
has leaves so strikingly resembling the pinnules of the Maidenhair Fern as to suggest its 
Latin specific name and its common English designation, Maidenhair-tree. A good 
authority upon ferns was deceived by Stangcria paradoxa — a Cycadaceous shrub which is 
exceptional among its allies in its fern-like foliage — and described it as a genuine member 
of the Filicince. No less practised a botanist than Sir William Hooker was deceived into 
describing a New Zealand Veronica as a species of Podocarpus, in the order Conferee. We 
see something of the same sort 
in our British flora, in the way 
in which the Fringed Buckbean 
( Limnanthemum nymphceoides ) re- 
calls to our minds the members 
of the Water-Lily tribe ; while 
it is certain that any person 
unfamiliar with the plant who 
should meet with the handsome, 
prickly, blue-green foliage of the 
Sea Holly ( Eryngium maritimum) 
growing among the sand upon 
the sea-shore, would think he had 
come across a thistle of some 
kind. We might pursue this 
subject to an indefinite length : 
but any one who has at all an 
extensive acquaintance with foreign plants will be able to recall numerous instances. A tropical 
African vine ( Vitis jatropJioides ) bears a striking resemblance when dried to a branch of the 
common sea-weed Fucus serratus ; while, to come back to the British flora, the likeness between 
. the Horsetails ( Equiseta ) and the Marestail (Higpuris vulgaris ) is most obvious, although the latter 
is a flowering plant, while the former are Cryptogams. We would draw special attention only 
to two of such cases. The Holly type of leaf is, as we all know, not very uncommon, but it is 
strange that the three leaves here shown are from plants of different natural orders. A is a leaf 
