40 
THE FERNS OF SOUTH AFRICA 
a good many Natal localities. He gives 120 species, but 
included several which were mistakes. 
Up to and about this date, the principal collectors, not 
already mentioned, were, in Cape Colony, Dr Pappe, Hon. 
R. W. Rawson, Dr Harvey, Dr Alexander, Sir Henry and 
Lady Barkly, Dr Atherstone, Capt. Espinasse, Col. Blagrove, 
Mrs Barber, Mrs Kitton, Mrs Holland, Dr Shaw, Rev. R. Baur, 
Dr H. Bolus, and Messrs Burke, McGibbon, Forbes, and 
Browning; and in Natal, Dr Krauss, Dr Cattell, Rev. J. Bu- 
chanan, and Messrs Plant, W. T. Gerrard, and M. J. McKen ; 
while Messrs Ayres, J. Sanderson, J. Todd, McLea, and 
F. Oates, collected in Natal and the Transvaal. 
The issue of the second edition of Hooker and Baker’s 
Synopsis Filicum (1874) gave a renewed interest in Pteri- 
dology, and has stood the test of time well, being still the 
standard descriptive work on the subject. It contains de- 
scriptions of 2235 species, so a good many names contained 
in the first edition must have lost specific rank. In the Cape, 
a further impetus was bestowed by the attention given to the 
subject by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, 
and by Lady Barkly, who in 1875 prepared a revised list of 
South African ferns, giving localities or distribution, so far 
as given in the Synopsis Filicum or shown by specimens in 
the Cape Government Herbarium, along with the results of 
their own travels, and with Natal notes supplied by Rev. J. 
Buchanan. This list appeared in the Cape Monthly Magazine , 
April, 1875. 
In this list, so great a number of Pappe and Rawson’s 
species are merged into others that, including additions made 
in the meantime, the total number of species is reduced to 153. 
Corresponding with this, and in the same year, came 
Rev. J. Buchanan’s revised list of Natal ferns in the Natal 
Colonist , with numerous notes upon the rarer or more con- 
fused species — a most useful list, in which 132 ferns and 
13 fern allies are enumerated, and Natal localities given. 
In 1877, Wood’s Ferns of Natal was issued, in which good 
popular descriptions are given of 119 species, along with 
distribution, Natal localities, etc. 
