Abnormal Ferns, Hybrids, and their Parents \ 
BY 
E. J. LOWE, F.R.S. 
AND 
COLONEL JONES. 
With Plate III. 
E do not intend by anything said in this paper to ignore 
V V the exertion of others in the same field ; we only wish 
to place on record our personal experience, and what we have 
accomplished by the labour of a number of years. 
More than thirty years ago experiments were commenced, 
and twenty-one years ago a paper was read by one of us 
(Mr. Lowe) ‘ on hybrid ferns’ at the Dundee Meeting of the 
British Association. The subject was at that time in its 
infancy, and none of the botanists then present, with the ex- 
ception of the late Professor Balfour, thoroughly believed in 
these crosses. The next year, 1868, the Rev. M. J. Berkeley 
sent a paper on the supposed crossing of two American species 
to the Royal Horticultural Society, and the late Sir William 
Hooker remarked 4 that it was the most probable instance he 
had yet met with of a real hybrid amongst ferns.’ This was 
a hybrid between Camptosorus rhizophyllus and Asplenium 
eheneum. 
The late Mr. Clapham, who had given the subject careful 
investigation for some years, only became convinced by seeing 
1 Read in Section D, British Association, on September loth, 1888. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. III. No. IX, February 1889.] 
