

INTRODUCTION 3 
The literature of our native Ferns is very copious, but that of 
the early days of their study either makes no reference to varieties 
at all, or dismisses them as monstrosities, and consequently un- 
worthy of serious attention. Moore's Nature-Printed Ferns 
was, we believe, the first work to deal with them on appreciative 
lines, both the folio and octavo editions containing a number of 
splendid plates printed from actual impressions of the fronds them- 
selves in soft metal. Mr. E. J. Lowe followed with New and 
Rare Ferns, embracing a number of British varieties, and then, 
in 1876, published two volumes, Our Native Ferns, illustrated 
with a very large number of coloured plates and woodcuts depicting 
and describing all the numerous varieties, of which at that date 
he could obtain a record. Twenty years later he published an 
invaluable little handbook, British Ferns, and Where Found 
(Swan Sonnenschein & Co.), to which we have alluded above as 
dealing with nearly 2000 forms, including those raised by selective 
cultivation. In Britten’s European Ferns, a few varieties are 
mentioned and figured. Mr. P. Neill Fraser, of Edinburgh, issued 
a list of varieties, and an interesting list of the Ferns of the Lake 
District was compiled by Mr. J. M. Barnes, and subsequently ex- 
tended in a second edition by Mr. G. Whitwell, of Kendal. In 
1888 the writer published Choice British Ferns (Upcott Gill), now 
out of print, describing and depicting a considerable number of 
the best types, and in 1901 he, in conjunction with a committee 
of the British Pteridological Society, brought the subject more up 
to date by The Book of British Ferns (Newnes), which described 
about 700 such. 
In the interim, however, Шеге have been still further develop- 
ments and “ finds,” and it is our object in this work to bring the 
subject still more up to date, on more generous lines, and so far as is 
possible within the limits permissible to make it a complete com- 
pendium of existing records, a book of reference for culture, etc., 
but rather for the practical amateur than for the scientific botanist, 
though for the benefit of the latter we give footnote references to 
some of the most important scientific literature concerned with 
the discoveries which have resulted since scientific research has been 
brought to bear upon the inner phenomena presented by abnormal 
forms of Ferns. The generic and specific names given are also 
those generally recognized by British Fern-growers, and we have 
purposely steered clear of the terrible quagmire involved in the 
infinite number of synonyms, or different names for the same thing, 
resulting from varied and frequently mistaken views on the part 
of those botanists who make classification and nomenclature 
their study, many of whom, too, are constantly inventing new 
names for old friends, and thus turning confusion into chaos. 
The economical uses of our living native Ferns we have also ignored, 
as of too little practical importance in these days ; but we should 







