During the past few years pteridology, and more especially the knowledge and 
cultivation of British Ferns, has made rapid progress. 
Rapid, hut not unexpected. Delight had come to be found in beauty of form and 
texture, independently of colour. By the reflective this was at once seen to be a 
great and happy advance ; to the unreflective and uncultured it was simply matter for 
vacant wonder ; the “knowing ones ” pooh-poohed it as “the rage of the hour,” “the 
fashion of a day,” &c. Time has proved the latter to be in error. 
It could not have happened otherwise ; from the moment when the first step was 
taken in the right direction retrogression was not to be thought of, for the simple reason 
that the so-called “ fashion ” is based not on false but true taste. 
For the growth and culture of ferns the humid climate of this country is peculiarly 
favourable, and the number of varieties of British Ferns at present in cultivation is 
prodigious. Some persons will start at being told that there are over 1,000 of these ! Yet 
such is the fact. In a list now before us their number is even put at a figure which goes 
far into the second thousand ! It may, we think, be quite safely asserted that there are 
now, in the different collections, over 1,000 distinct and permanent forms of our native 
species, many of them among the most beautiful and others the most singular and curious 
of all known ferns. 
When asked, as we frequently are, how many species of British ferns there are, and 
how many varieties, we are constrained to answer that on this point “the doctors 
disagree,” that which one savant regards as a “ species ” being held by another to be 
“ simply a variety,” and vice versa. Several of the varieties enumerated in the following 
list are regarded as species by eminent authorities, as would probably many more were 
they to receive thorough investigation. 
Some people are disposed to cry out against the “making” of varieties. But what is to 
be done ? Here we have a number of distinct and permanent forms of a plant, which have 
to be spoken of, written of, bought and sold. Distinctive names are clearly not to be 
dispensed with. The mere exigencies of commerce demand such. And why not affix 
distinct names to plants possessing distinct characters ? We consider the above outcry 
(in regard to the “ making ” of varieties) unreasonable, in face of the eminent skill and 
judgment and extended experience of the “ makers.” But, indeed, Nature herself is the 
“ maker.” Our pteridologists do but chronicle her doings. 
“In England,” says an eminent foreign botanist, writing lately, “the more influential 
“ botanists are in the highest degree unfavourable to the subdivision of species; they 
“prefer to throw under one or two specific names innumerable forms which, were 
“ they to receive a fair examination, would be found to possess characters as definite, as 
“ decided, and I may say as easy to seize upon and express as the most incontestable of the 
“ Linnean species.” “Is man a better guide than Nature ? It surely behoves us 
“ to study her as she is, not as she is made to appear in the books of systematic authors.” 
We concur. 
The responsibility of affixing names to plants, however, is one which we ever under- 
take with diffidence. Had it been otherwise, and had we been accustomed to make out 
varieties from slender data, the numbers in our present list might have been considerably 
swollen. 
Possessing, thus, a great many varieties still in course of being tested, we have 
concluded to defer the publication of a more fully descriptive catalogue. The 
absence of such will be largely compensated by the numerous works on the subject in 
the hands of the public. Every fern-lover of means now possesses a whole library in 
connection with his favourites ; and even he of least means has, in his hands or at his 
elbow, numerous cheap serials and cheap reprints of valuable books on his favourite 
subject. Moreover, few people expend any considerable sum upon “novelties” merely 
upon the strength of a “ description,” and without seeing either plant or frond. 
Thanking those whom we have had the honour to serve in the past, and respectfully 
soliciting their further commands, we hasten to conclude a perhaps too wordy preface. 
Todmobden, 1865 
A, STANSFIELD & SONS. 
