THE FERNS OF SOUTH AFRICA 
39 
closely followed, and, though many new species were described, 
only a few of them have been upheld by the more recent 
authorities on ferns, the great majority having sunk into the 
position of varieties. Altogether, 161 ferns and fern allies are 
described, beside 16 species described by former authors, on 
which Pappe and Rawson had doubts. 
Lowe’s Ferns , British and Exotic (i860), and Hooker’s 
Filices Exoticae (1859), include descriptions and figures of a 
few South African species. 
Mettenius’ Re-arrangement of Ferns ( Ueber einige Farn- 
gattungen , 1851-9) is followed by Kuhn, whose Filices Afri- 
canae (1868) gives a complete list of the ferns and fern allies 
of Africa and the African islands, with descriptions of new 
species, and the most complete and accurate synonymy that 
materials would allow. 
In this remarkable book, 59 genera and 683 species 
(including fern allies) are credited to Africa. So far as 
South Africa is represented in it, the materials were 
drawn, in great part, from Pappe and Rawson’s synopsis, 
with the result that a few species, which had evidently 
not been compared, are maintained on insufficient 
grounds. 
Moore’s Index , about the same date, gives splendid illus- 
trations of the generic distinctions, and also a complete 
synonymy so far as it goes, but it was never completed, and 
only goes, alphabetically, to G. 
Hooker and Baker’s Synopsis Filicum (1868) again brought 
fern knowledge up to date, and put the systematic work in 
such form that the identification became easier, and con- 
sequently the study became more popular. This splendid 
book contains descriptions of 2401 species. 
In Harvey’s Genera of South African Plants , 2nd edition 
(1868), the genera of Cape ferns are set down by Mr Baker 
at 37, and the species at 132. 
McKen, immediately after the issue of Hooker and Baker’s 
Synopsis Filicum , prepared a small Ferns of Natal (1869), in 
which the descriptions of genera and species are transcribed 
verbatim from the Synopsis Filicum , but with the addition of 
