New Zealand Ferns 
7 
to the rocks and trees up which they climb. The seeds 
of the common Polypody of Europe are placed on the 
back of the frond in roundish masses without any pro- 
tective covering — indusium, as the botanists call it. 
Therefore all ferns bearing such seeds are classed as 
P olyp odium, though a large number of them have but 
a single tufted root, and do not climb. Consequently it 
must be borne in mind that the name Polypodium doe-s 
not necessarily imply a many-footed plant, but one that 
bears naked, roundish seeds. 
Mr. John Smith, for many years curator of Ivew Gar- 
dens, suggested a system based on the growth of ferns, 
but he found few followers, and Hooker’s system is 
the one generally adopted in the British Empire and 
America. 
Before the advent of Darwin’s theory of the “Origin 
of Species,” most botanists believed that each species 
was a separate creation and immutable, entitled there- 
fore, to a separate name. This led to frequent misun- 
derstandings about the intermediate forms that connect 
some of the species with each other, a difficulty which 
Darwin’s theory explains, though it does not make the 
classification any easier. To be told that plants are 
always producing varieties, and that if any of these are 
profitable to the plant, that one will have a better chance 
of surviving, seems to make a hard and fast division 
only more difficult. 
To take a concrete example. Pellaca falcata and P. 
rotundifolia are to be found near Auckland, growing 
together in the same locality, though rotundifolia is far 
the more abundant plant. Typical specimens of the two 
are very different from each other, yet there are a num- 
ber of gradations which connect them. Which is the or- 
iginal type? One might say falcata , it is being left behind 
and slowly exterminated in the struggle for existence by 
the more prolific rotundifolia, which also explains its 
rarity. Yet, how do we know that falcata is not the new 
type, which in course of time will swamp the other? Or 
the original form may be midway between the two. 
