PREFACE 
T HE great variability which characterises nearly all the 
British species of Ferns, coupled with the long- 
continued assiduity of Fern hunters and raisers, has 
led to such an immense accumulation of varieties 
that a complete list is rendered an impossibility. From time to 
time lists have been compiled in as exhaustive a fashion as 
possible, some being simple catalogues of names, as Mr. P. Neill 
Fraser’s, and others, as, for instance, Mr. E. J. Lowe’s 
“British Ferns” (Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1891), giving 
descriptions, names of raiser or finder, and date of origin in 
addition, while in “ Ferns of the Lake District,” edited first 
by Mr. J. M. Barnes, and subsequently by Mr. G. Whitwell, 
a purely local list is given on similar lines. In 1888, the 
editor also published “Choice British Ferns” (Upcott Gill), 
which embraced a selection of the best forms then extant. In 
all these lists, however, the nearer they approach numerical 
completeness the greater the number of forms they embrace, 
which, in these later days, must be considered inferior. As 
a wild find every distinct and marked form, if constant, is of 
interest, but now that we have arrived at a time when such 
finds run into hundreds, and it is seen that not only are 
Co 
many of them of very similar types, or what is more to the 
point, are more curious than beautiful, the need has arisen 
for a list on purely selective lines, embracing only the pick, 
and rejecting all such faulty ones as may not possess some 
