BRITISH FERNS 
INTRODUCTION 
A 
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ALTHOUGH Ше species of Ferns indigenous to Ше British Isles are 
comparatively few in number, contrasted with the multiplicity of 
those found in tropical and sub-tropical regions, where the necessary 
conditions of warmth and moisture prevail, and although these 
selfsame species are in no instance confined to Britain, most of 
them being widespread and as abundant in many other countries, 
or even more so, than here, yet for some reason, difficult to explain, 
they stand far and away above all outside Ferns, even those of 
their own species, in the varietal phenomena they have exhibited. 
“That this is so may be judged by a comparison of the list of varieties 
compiled in 1891 by Mr. E. J. Lowe in his British Ferns, and Where 
Found, the wild finds of which, described and recognized as distinct, 
number no less than 1119, to which may undoubtedly be added a 
considerable number of others, as fresh ones are continually turning 
up, and it is incredible that even Mr. Lowe, with the aid of his many 
Fern-loving friends, could have become aware of many casual 
finds which have fallen to the lot of outsiders. Be this as it may, 
the number mentioned suffices to show that under purely wild and 
unsophisticated conditions, in our shady lanes, woods, and glens, 
and in our roadside hedges, hedgebanks, old walls, and creviced 
rocks, our native Ferns have a most remarkable faculty for depart- 
ing from the normal type, adopting new ones on most diverse lines, 
and, in point of fact, by their constancy and capacity for trans- 
mitting their peculiarities through their spores to their offspring, 
of fulfilling all the definitions of fresh species. Exotic Ferns, it is 
true, have afforded a number of wild sports, but the great majority 
of those which we see at our shows and in our botanical gardens 
have varied under cultivation on selective lines, and it is a re- 
markable fact that we have numerous types of variation in our 
native species, to which no approach whatever has been made by 
the exotic sports, of which the majority belong to the crested 
section, a few to the plumose or extra feathery section, while out- 
side these there are few or none. One very feasible explanation of 
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