8 
FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 
are of sufficient importance to be worthy of a passing 
notice. The first of these in point of date is the 
“ Enumeratio Plantarum Horti Eegii Botanici Bero- 
linensis,” by Wilde now, published in 1809, with a 
Supplement by Sclileclitendal, bringing it down to 
1813. We are thus enabled to compare the num- 
bers in the Kew and Berlin gardens at the same 
period; which were eighty-three in the former, and 
thirty in the latter, including eleven not known at 
Kew. During the succeeding nine years more atten- 
tion appears to have been given to Ferns at the 
Berlin garden ; for Link, in his first “ Enumeratio,” 
in 1822, describes ninety-one exotic species, which 
is more than double the number then existing at 
Kew. After this the increase in number was still 
more rapid ; for in the second edition of Link’s 
“ Enumeratio,” published in 1833, no less than two 
hundred and thirty-nine are described ; and in the 
third, in 1841, two hundred and fifty-eight, exclusive 
of varieties. 
By this time, however, the collection at Kew had 
received large additions, both through importations 
of living plants and by raising from spores. In 
1845 it was so extensive that I was induced to 
draw up a classified enumeration, which was pub- 
lished as an appendix to the Botanical Magazine for 
1846. The number of exotic species there enume- 
rated is three hundred and forty-eight, and I do not 
think many were to be found in other gardens in 
this country which were not at Kew, so that the Kew 
list may be taken as a guide to the number then 
in British gardens generally. 
Four years later, Kunze, of Leipzig, contributed to 
