THE FERNS OF SOUTH AFRICA 
47 
Waller and Sir John Kirk had also collected there and on the 
Zambesi. 
Mrs Doig Young, of Main, Tembuland, has for many 
years sent interesting collections from that neighbourhood, 
and Mr A. G. MacLoughlin has also collected largely in the 
same district. 
Mr W. A. Quail sent a collection from Ficksburg, Orange 
Free State. 
Mr Wm Leighton and Mr W. E. Marriott have collected 
in the Karkloof district of Natal, and Dr J. W. Bews in the 
neighbourhood of Van Reenen in the Orange Free State and 
Natal. 
Among - other recent collectors besides those mentioned 
o 
above, and whose specimens I have seen, are : Mr T. H. Rex, 
Mr Pehrsson, Mr T. J. Jenkins, Miss L. Collins, Miss F. 
Thorncroft, Miss Williams, Dr F. Wilms, Rev. F. A. Rogers, 
Mr W. Nelson, Mrs S. Burger, Mr C. Wilde, Mr P. Krantz, 
Prof. G. Potts, Mr A. Roberts, Miss L. C. de Beer, Miss S. 
Viljoen, Mr V. G. Crawley, Mr A. J. T. Janse, Miss M. Knobel, 
Mr H. A. Baily, Mr Allen (formerly of Victoria Falls), 
Mr Eastwood, and Mr John M. Sim. 
Constant diversity of opinion has been at work during 
the past century as to the claims to specific rank of some 
of the more closely related of our ferns, and numerous such 
species named as new by the various writers have come to be 
discarded later as their relationship and liability to variation 
became better understood. On this account the number of 
South African species, which was unduly raised by early 
writers, has been increasing slowly of late, as the deletion 
of bad species has almost equalled the discovery of new good 
species. The extension of area in the present work has, 
however, allowed a considerable increase in the number of 
species enumerated, which is 220 species of ferns and fern 
allies in the present edition as against 179 species in the first 
edition. 
We still include a few which have been found only once, 
and which may later on come to be regarded as conditional 
varieties of other species when better understood. But we 
