HISTORY OF INTRODUCTION OF EXOTIC FERNS. 9 
the 23rd volume of the “Linnasa” an alphabetical index 
of the Ferns cultivated in European gardens, and in 
this the large number of eight hundred and forty-three 
exotic species are enumerated; but the authorities 
upon which a very considerable portion of these were 
inserted cannot be relied upon, many names having 
been taken from such catalogues as those of Sweet, 
Loudon, &c., and I am therefore obliged to con- 
clude that the number given by Kunze as living in 
Europe in 1850 is greatly exaggerated. This con- 
clusion, too, is confirmed by the fact that in 1857, 
after I had by correspondence become acquainted with 
the collections in the principal gardens on the Conti- 
nent, and after that at Kew had obtained most of their 
novelties by means of exchange, I could, in my 
“ Catalogue of Cultivated Ferns,” enumerate only five 
hundred and sixty exotic species as known in British 
gardens. Since the last-mentioned year, the con- 
stantly increasing demand for Ferns consequent upon 
their wider spread cultivation, has greatly stimulated 
the introduction of new ones, and our collections 
have increased at the rate of about fifty species a 
year. 
It now remains to say a few words regarding the 
means by which these plants have been obtained, and 
the persons who have been most active in introducing 
them, taking the Kew collection as a foundation. 
Firstly, with reference to the paid collectors employed 
in various parts of the world, directly or indirectly in 
the service of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, and to 
whom that garden is indebted for additions to its Fern 
collection. It would appear that so long back as the 
year 1775 Mr. Francis Masson, one of the earliest, if 
