210 
THE PRESERVATION OF NATIVE PLANTS. 
but even to point out to him which were the most beautiful 
and rarest plants. This man perfectly grasped how this 
information might be made subservient to his own interest, 
and now he brings these plants down every spring by 
basketfuls, roots and all, and sells them to amateurs for their 
gardens.” 
Need I draw a parallel between this process and that 
which is going on daily in our midst ? or remind you of the 
professional British plant-hunter, who haunts the popular 
resort of the tourist and during the holiday season purveys 
the most beautiful or rarest flowering plants and ferns of his 
district, ruthlessly eradicating them in the height of their 
summer growth ? When I was in the habit of visiting North 
Wales frequently in my earlier years, sheets of Oak Fern 
carpeted the soil beside almost every waterfall; the glorious 
Osmunda grew in profusion in some of the marshy flats of 
Carnarvonshire ; I could always find Pohjstichiun, Lonchitis 
by an hour’s search in certain habitats; Asplenium septen- 
trionale , though scarce, grew in one or two localities in 
considerable quantity; and the rarer Woodsia ilvensis was to 
be found in stations known to the few who were familiar with 
the recesses of Cwm Glas or the crags of Clogwyn-y-Garnedd; 
while Anthericum serotinum and other choice flowering plants 
equally rewarded the search of the industrious botanist. 
Now the rarest of these are extinct or all but extinct. 
The lovely Royal Fern is extremely scarce, and the Oak and 
the Beech Fern have been well-nigh exterminated, and such 
comparatively common species as Asplenium viride among 
ferns, and the exquisite Silene acaiilis among flowering plants, 
are difficult to find. 
The same process has been going on in every other district 
frequented by the tourist, and every botanist could furnish a 
list of plants which, during the last twenty years, have been 
exterminated or made scarce by the ravages of the trade 
collector. 
Again, in the markets of our own and of other large towns 
even the commoner plants of the district are daily exposed for 
sale by hundreds, usually in full leaf or flower, so that the 
lanes and hedgerows for miles round are completely stripped, 
and even the Daffodil and the Male Fern have become scarce. 
Then look for a moment at these advertisements, culled 
from the columns of periodicals devoted to horticulture, which 
it is impossible to read without a feeling of disgust and 
indignation:— 
24 DEVONSHIRE FERNS, named varieties, for Is. 6d., larger 
plants Gd. extra. Maiden-liair (Asplenium Trichoinanes), black 
