6 FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 
next as tlie largest contributors, fifteen having been 
introduced from the former and twelve from the latter 
country ; while of the remaining sixteen, four appear 
to have come from the East Indies, four from the 
Cape of Good Hope, three from New Holland, and 
one from St. Helena, — making in all eighty-three 
species. 
The next catalogue of garden plants worthy of 
notice is the “Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis,” 
published in 1818, only five years after the “ Ilortus 
Kewensis,” by Mr. Sweet, the Superintendent of the 
then celebrated nursery of Mr. Colville, at Chelsea. 
In it I find an enumeration of one hundred and eight 
exotic ferns ; but this work, like the similar more im- 
portant “Hortus Britannicus/'’ brought out by the in- 
defatigable Loudon in 1 830, and which contains no less 
than three hundred and thirty exotic Ferns, includes 
not only a considerable proportion of bad species, 
but also a large number that did not really exist 
in British gardens, many having been entered without 
authentic evidence, and others added upon the mere 
expectation that they might shortly be introduced, — 
expectations which, in many cases, have not been 
realized to this day. No reliance can therefore be 
placed upon either of these works, and I cannot 
accept them as authorities. 
During the latter part of the eighteenth century and 
the commencement of the nineteenth, the only pri- 
vate individuals who turned their attention, with any 
amount of energy, to the introduction of new and 
rare plants, were the long- and far-famed nurserymen 
at Hackney, the Messrs. Loddiges; and to them 
we owe the greater part, if not the whole, of the 
