51 



thirty years of proper culture has enabled it to develop, 

 adds a full foot and a-half and constitutes it a thorough- 

 bred British Tree Fern. This plant belongs to the hard 

 evergreen section of the Male Ferns as distinct from the 

 softer section " filix-mas," the common Male Fern, and 

 therefore is as ornamental in the winter, when foliage is 

 precious, as in the summer when it becomes one of a host 

 among deciduous species. It is heavily and symmetrically 

 tasselled at the tips of its fronds and pinnae, or side divi- 

 sions. This imparts a highly ornate character to it, far 

 and away eclipsing the simpler beauty of the normal form 

 of the species. 



The original plant of this was found in Cornwall, and as it 

 is particularly generous not only of spores but also of offsets, 

 it has become very generally distributed, and even in those 

 benighted districts where the natives live up to their necks, 

 so to speak, in ferns, and yet don't know a Hartstoiigue from a 

 Lady Fern, we have been deluded into long walks by rumours 

 of So-and-So having a rare fern in his garden, only to find 

 that a specimen of the "King" has found its way there. 

 Both in Devon and in Kent this has occurred, in both 

 cases an apochryphal rumour existing that the fern was a 

 local find, a reputation we felt bound to destroy. 



Thanks to the fertility above mentioned and the extremely 

 easy culture of the Fern, no collection exists without one or 

 more specimens, but this means little so far as adequate 

 recognition is concerned, for it should not merely figure in 

 collections, its hardiness, beauty and cheapness entitle it to 

 a place in every rockery as well as to a high post of honour 

 under glass. To attain the result, however, which we have 

 described, viz. the aspect of a Tree Fern, there is just 

 that touch of careful and persistent culture required, which 

 makes a fern plant precious. If we have nothing to do but 

 dump a plant into a pot and it straightway grows like a 

 weed, producing offsets in all directions and becoming a 

 bush, we are apt to think little of it, but if, on the other 

 hand, we can, by cliecking its exuberance in certain direc- 

 tions, induce it to assume a specially beautiful character 



