HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION OF EXOTIC FERNS. 
37 
tions to our ferneries. One of these. Polypodium 
heteromorphum , Hook., was found by Dr. Jameson 
“ upon the top of the mountain face of dripping 
rocks ; ” and has simple fronds like those of Asplc- 
nium Trichomanes, mixed in the same tuft with 
others which are repeatedly branched in a regular 
dichotomous manner like the Gleichenice ; while the 
other, Polypodium bifrons, Hook., found by the same 
botanist in Ecuador, growing on branches of trees 
partially immersed in water, has sterile fronds resem- 
bling oak leaves in their general outline, and narrow 
wavy fertile ones. To the creeping rhizomes of the 
specimens collected by Dr. Jameson there were 
attached curious bodies, resembling small potatoes . 
but these were most probably adventitious, and 
caused by some insect. Dr. J. W. Sturm, in his little 
work on the Fern Flora of Chili, enumerates one hun- 
dred and sixty-one species as found in that country 
and the adjacent island of Juan Fernandez; but 
very few of these have as yet been introduced, though 
many of them would prove acceptable additions to our 
half-hardy collections. 
The numerous islands of the Pacific Ocean are, as a 
general rule, rich in Ferns, and worthy of being visited 
by a collector of living plants. The Hawaiian or Sand- 
wich Islands, for example, would afford three fine species 
of Cibotium. One of them, which has the stipes densely 
clothed with beautiful golden silky moniliform hairs, 
is so abundant that these hairs are collected as an article 
of commerce and are largely exported to California 
and Australia for the purpose of stuffing cushions, &c. ; 
Polypodium pellucidum, a creeping species, allied to 
our P. vulrjare, but differing in having pellucid striae 
