288 



growing plants of no decorative value, and have done little 

 in the varietal way. The prettiest is 



ASPLENIUM FONTANUM, 



which, however, has only been found in a few places, and 

 not at all we believe of late years in a wild state. It grows 

 erect about five or six inches high with prettily cut fronds, 

 twice divided and rather narrow, a little in the line of Asp. 

 ad. nigrum, but more compact. Owing to the arrangement 

 of the spore heaps on very short lobes, they lose much of 

 the lineal character, but the cover betrays the genus. 



Asp. viita. nmraria, Asp. septentvionale and /4s/. gevinanicum^ 

 may be bunched together as small growing rock and wall 

 Ferns of no cultural value. The first is plentiful on old 

 walls in many places, it has once-divided fronds with small 

 often wedge-shaped sub-divisions, and forms tufts an inch 

 or two high, though sometimes in shady positions as much 

 again. The other two are so simple as to resemble stiff 

 looking grass tufts rather than Ferns, and are only found 

 occasionally in moorland dykes or similar localities. 



Charles T. Druery, V.M.H. 



NEW FERN STRAINS (continued). 



Some pinnules were carefully detached, and when laid 

 down on a glass slip and examined under a microscope they 

 were seen to burst and scatter a fair number of spores over 

 the field of view. Here, then, at last was afforded an oppor- 

 tunity of multiplying this still rare form on more liberal lines 

 than offsets permitted, but none of the three had then the 

 remotest idea of what that sowing would result in. In 

 due course prothalli developed on healthy lines in both 

 the sowings made by ^Ir. Green and the writer, the spores 

 being divided. No sooner, however, had the primary 

 fronds produced by the prothalli been followed by the 

 second ones than a peculiar slenderness was noted in a 

 number of the plants, and as they developed this character 



