42 
FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 
duced; only one half-dozen out of the 52 species 
described by Dr. Hooker in. his “Flora Tasmania ” 
being unknown in our gardens, while of the Aus- 
tralian ones about a third are still wanting to complete 
our collection, and one of these is the extremely rare 
Platyzoma microphylla, found by E. Brown on the 
borders of the Gulf of Carpentaria during Flinder’s 
yoyage — an extremely neat little Fern, with rigid 
pinnate fronds a foot long, and hardly one-eighth of 
an inch broad, haying minute oval pinnules, with 
revolute edges and powdery beneath, growing in tufts 
from short creeping rhizomes.* 
I have now traced the progress of the introduction of 
exotic Ferns to the gardens of this country, and shown 
that many novelties have yet to come. Ho doubt, 
more or less of them will from time to time be intro- 
duced, as they are eagerly sought after by nume- 
rous amateurs. Select private collections are thus 
formed, in many cases consisting of rare and unique 
plants; but, in the course of time, changes in private 
establishments take place, and thus collections of 
Ferns get dispersed, and species are often lost to the 
country. It is, therefore, only to such public esta- 
blishments as that of Kew that we have to look to 
for the preservation of special collections. As there 
is no law or rule defining what kinds of plants should 
or should not be grown in public Botanic Gardens, 
the matter resting entirely with the Director or 
Curator, some families of plants are often more 
favoured than others, although all are of equal merit 
* Since the above was written about a dozen of the species 
named have been introduced, and will be found in the Appendix 
to the Second Edition. 
