P R E F A C E .
W h a t e v e r may be the merits of the present publication, it will be seen
that they are entirely due to the distinguished Natural History Painter whose
name appears upon the plates, and who, upon the expression of my admiration
of the beauty and fidelity of the original drawings, most liberally confided
them to my charge, with a view to their immediate publication. The
plates have been all executed in my own residence, and under my own eye,
in zincography, by a young artist, W a l t e r F i t c h , with a delicacy and
accuracy which I trust will not discredit the figures from which they were
copied.
With regard to my own sliare in the work, I would not have it to be
understood that the Genera here introduced are what I definitively recommend
as, in every instance, worthy of being retained; but such as have
been universally received and firmly established, or such as have been formed
by Botanists whose opinions deserve attention. A more accurate examination
of the several species of each Genus, which are now under review in the
preparation of a “ S p e c i e s F i l i c u m , ” will enable me hereafter to form a
more correct judgment on this head than it is now in my power to do. In
the meanwhile I shall pay the utmost deference to the opinions of Swartz,
and our own countrymen, Sir James Smith and Mr Brown, to whose successful
labours the Order of Filices owes so much ; and no less to those of
Professor Presl of Prague, author of the admirable “ T e n t a m e n P t e r i -
D O G R A PH liE , SEU G e NERA F i L ICA C EA RUM , PR iE S E R T IM JH X TA VENARUM
d e c u r s u m e t d i s t r i b u t i o n e m e x p o s i t a . ” This work, wiiich only readied
my hands after much of the present fasciculus was prepared for the press,
has thrown a new light upon the distribution of the Ferns, chiefly by tlie