THE LADY FERN. ; 23 
forms occurring in this plant, ineludes various elegantly laciniated: 
crisped, and tasselled varieties, which are in many cases singularly 
beautiful. l 
Sometimes it has been found rather difficult to assign exact limits 
to the varieties, since in certain cases they pass by intermediate forms 
the one into the other; but after having for several years cultivated 
many of the plants, and given much attention to the subject, we are 
compelled to adopt the conclusion that there is much of permanence 
and constancy, at least under cultivation, among the forms which 
scientific men are prone to repudiate as ‘ sports.’ We have ourselves 
rediscovered several recognisable common forms, in wild habitats 
even though after a lapse of six or eight years they had attamed an 
increase of vigour, so that the variations in these cases were at least 
not the result of difference of age ; and we have removed others to 
the garden, and. have not found them to vary beyond the aequisition i 
of an increase of vigour under cultivation. Every part of the plants 
- the scales, the stipites, the outline and direction of the fronds, the 
form attachment and direction of the pinnules, and the size and 
position of the sori—is so subject to change, that it is difficult to 
determine what peculiarities are of the highest value in endeavour- 
ing to set limits to the varieties; and for this reason, comparatively 
few of the forms below enumerated are considered to have any other 
botanieal importance than that of proving the variability of what 
are called species. They are, however, of extreme interest to ama- 
teur eultivators; and hence we have thought it better to notice all 
that were known to us, rather than to cast the most puzzling aside 
as being ‘diseased’ or ‘ malformed’ plants, and thus virtually to 
ignore their existence. 
Normat Series. 
1. confluens (M.). This variety has a peculiar rigid erect appearance. 
` Tt grows nearly a foot in height, and is narrow-lanceolate, sub- 
bipinnate, with the pinne somewhat distant ; the longest pinne are an 
inch or rather more in length, and irregular in outline. In the fronds 
produced during several years after its discovery, the basal pinnule was 
distinct, with shallow two or three-toothed lobes, and stood rather 
distant from the rest, which were crowded, confluent at the base, and 

