X 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
In consequence of trade collectors and impoi’ters of 
new plants being desirous of bringing them into eai'ly 
public notice, names are given them without having 
first taken the precaution to ascertain whether they 
are not already named and described in Botanical 
works; thus names frequently appear in Nurserymen’s 
Catalogues, as new, without descriptions, or even their 
native country given.* Many of such introductions 
are, however, from time to time described in the Gar- 
dener’s Chronicle by Mr. T. Moore, whose knowledge 
and writings on ferns are sufficient to warrant their 
adoption as new species. I have, therefore, in the 
present addenda, omitted many of these provisional 
names. 
In the plant catalogues of Nurserymen who make 
ferns a special object of trade, besides the enumeration 
of specific names, a great number of what are called 
varieties are also recorded, and their prices affixed, of 
which Mr. Stansfield’s Catalogue contains the names of 
nearly 500. These consist of abnormal forms of a few 
British species, principally of Asplenium Filix-fcemina, 
Lastrea Filix-mas, Polysticlmm aculeatum , Scolopen- 
drium vulgare, Lomaria Spicant, and Polypodium 
vidgare, to which numbers of new forms are yearly 
* It should be made a special rule that all importers or pos- 
sessors of supposed new plants, before offering them for sale, should 
have them examined by some competent authority, for which there 
is now ample means in the National Botanical Establishment of 
Kew, either by examining the living plants in the garden, or in 
the Herbarium, or by books in the library, or the Herbarium in the 
British Museum, which now contains my Fern collection. 
