and numbers (at the close of the year 1860) 5,222 coloured 
plates, with their accompanying descriptions. We are justified 
then in considering this the model for the publication before us. 
As the number of British Ferns, unlike the subjects for the 
i Botanical Magazine/ is limited, we can announce with confi¬ 
dence, even should any new discoveries be made during the pro¬ 
gress of the work, that it will not extend beyond the present 
volume, and will include about sixty-four plates. With a view 
of rendering it as generally useful as possible to British students, 
the whole descriptive matter will be written in the English lan¬ 
guage ; and in regard to arrangement, it is not unnatural that 
we should follow (with as little alteration as possible) that of the 
last edition (the eighth) of the c British Flora/ by Hooker and 
Arnott. 
The Ferns are general favourites with the lovers of Nature 
and of the horticulturist, in consequence of the extreme beauty 
and gracefulness of their forms; with the botanical student, from 
their peculiar and varied organization, especially in what con¬ 
cerns their fructification. In point of usefulness to mankind, as 
concerns their products and properties , they do not hold a very 
high rank in the vegetable world. It is true that in many parts 
of the globe, where the arts of civilized life are unknown, many 
kinds form an article of food, nowhere perhaps more extensively 
than in New Zealand; though there, thanks to the improved 
condition of the people, it is rather a habit of bygone days. 
“Fern-root” says Dr. Arthur S. Thomson, in his interesting 
‘ Story of New Zealand : Past and Present, Savage and Civilized/ 
“ was one of the principal articles of food : it was the Bread-fruit 
of the country. All over the North Island Fern abounds, but 
the productive edible variety is the Fteris esculenta, Forst. This 
food is celebrated in song; and the young women, in laying be¬ 
fore travellers baskets of cooked fern-root, chant: e What shall 
be our food ? Shall shell-fish and fern-root P That is the root 
of the earth; that is the food to satisfy a man • the tongues grow 
by reason of the licking, as if it were the tongue of a dog/ 
“Edible Fern,” he “continues, comes to perfection only in 
good soils, and here the plant is ten feet high. Three-year-old 
plants furnish the best fern-root, and such is an inch in circum¬ 
ference. The deeper the root is found in the ground, the richer 
it is. In the month of November fern-root is dug up, cut in 
pieces nine inches long, and is then placed in stacks carefully 
protected from rain, but through which a free current of air 
blows. Fresh fern-root is not good; that which has been about 
a year aboveground is most esteemed. This is only eaten after 
it is roasted; and before it is cooked it is steeped in water 
and dried in the sun. The whole root is chewed, and the woody 
fibre is spit out. The flour is loosened from the woody fibre by 
