THE FERNS OF SOUTH AFRICA 
43 
flora of Southern Rhodesia, including many ferns, and this 
has been recently revised for republication. 
In 1907, Dr J. Medley Wood published his Handbook to 
the Flora of Natal , which in so far as ferns and allied plants 
are concerned includes synoptical descriptions and general 
distribution of 139 species. In 1912 Mr J. Burtt-Davy, F.F.S., 
and Mrs R. Pott-Feendertz published their “ First Checklist 
of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Transvaal and Swazi- 
land” in the Annals of the Transvaal Museum (May, 1912), in 
which 1 12 species of ferns and fern allies are enumerated. 
Dr Marloth has a work on hand on the Flora of South 
Africa 1 , in which ferns as well as other plants will be treated, 
and of which the first volume has recently been published. 
In Europe various botanists have been at work on ferns, 
including South African ferns, among whom may be men- 
tioned Professors Engler, Christ, Hieronymus, Bower, Prince 
Roland Bonaparte, etc., but European investigation has in- 
terested itself more in the life-history of ferns than in their 
systematic classification. It is probable that some smaller 
foreign publications in Europe have not come to my notice, 
and it is to be regretted that one such which I have seen 
(Krasser, Ann. Hofmus. Wien , 15, 1900) illustrates two so- 
called new species, Asplenium multiforme Krasser and Ne- 
phrodium Pentheri Krasser, which are evidently identical with 
old and well known kinds. 
In the fournal of the Linnean Society (Botany), No 262, 
Vol. 37, Nov. 1, 1906, is included “A Contribution to the 
Botany of Southern Rhodesia,” by Miss F. S. Gibbs, F.L.S., 
in which 20 ferns and 4 fern allies are named. 
New species have been described in various journals, 
including fournal of Botany (July, 1874) and Gardeners' 
Chronicle (Nov. 16, 1889), and all additions to, or alterations 
of, the second edition of Hooker and Baker’s Synopsis Fi- 
licum up to that date were brought together by Baker in 
Annals of Botany (1891) 2 . Another new species is described 
by him in Kew Bulletin , 1901, page 138. 
1 The Flora of South Africa , by Dr R. Marloth. Part I. issued 1914. 
2 Reprinted as A Summary of the new Ferns which have been discovered or 
described since 1874, by J. G. Baker, F.R.S. (1892). 
