92 Lucas, Ferns Grown in the Open. [v(^"^xxxvi. 



whorls of perfect fronds and withstood the heat proudly. 

 Beneath it flourished A. flabellifolutm, as green and graceful as 

 ever. It is so placed that it can droop over freely. A. falcatnm 

 and A. fiircatimt are generally met with on the sides or crown 

 of rocks on the borders of stream-traversed gullies, where they 

 have but little soil, but receive a steady drainage from the rocks. 

 The latter is much the rarer, and a more northern species, but 

 it has taken to the new conditions much more readily than 

 the former. Neither have succumbed, however, nor has 

 another rare species, A. attenuatuni, of which I have several 

 plants and have lost none. A. hulhiferum, with and without 

 proliferations, is quite green, and has continued to put out 

 new fronds. A. flaccidum was too tender ; it attracted the 

 attention of some pest, which cut off the fronds, and disappeared 

 even before the hottest weather came. It is happy only on a 

 tree-fern trunk in the drip of a waterfall. 



Of young tree-ferns I have only three kinds — all species of 

 Alsophila. As might be expected, A. aiistralis stands hard 

 times best of them all, and soon sends out liold fronds. A. 

 Leichhardtiana is a slender fern, with very prickly rachides. 

 During the hot term it lost about as many fronds as it pro- 

 duced, but is coming on now that it is freed from the torment. 

 A. Cooperi, a soft, hairy species, survived the ill-treatment, 

 but suffered more even than A. Leichhardtiana. In all, the 

 young fronds now unfolding are stouter than those which 

 preceded them, so that the roots have been gaining in strength 

 all the time. 



I have not had much success with Film Ferns, only saving 

 a frond or two of the one I grew, Hymenophyllum javanicmn. 

 It is very hard to reproduce a good imitation of the natural 

 habitat, though these plants grow well enough under glass. 

 Todea Fraseri is very like the Film Ferns in this respect. The 

 young fronds have the same delicate structure. It is a fern 

 I tried hard to grow, as it is a charming plant, but in the open 

 I have only left two or three starveling specimens. Todea 

 harbara is not one of the easiest ferns to grow ; it requires 

 nursing — at all events in the young stages. 



Young Staghorn Ferns nailed to a big old stump grew rapidly, 

 and showed no ill effects of the heat. It is, of course, generally 

 grown out of doors. On this stump I grew several orchids — 

 Cynibidimn suave, Sarcochilits olivaceiis, Biilbophyllum Shepherdi, 

 and B. exigmim, and Liparis reflexa. The first has been 

 growing on the stump for about ten years, and flowers regularly 

 every season. I have never seen a seedling, though the pods 

 ripen each year and scatter the seeds over the broad top of 

 the stump, where one would think they ought to germinate. 



Pteris is perhaps the hardiest genus of them all. Native 



