^3 



spleenworts, but this is one, unhappily, of the many cases 

 where naming has taken place in defiance of obvious family 

 characters, habits, and habitats entirely opposed to the 

 relaiionship implied. Hardly a more glaring case of this 

 kind than the Athyrium can be imagined. The Spleen- 

 worts, or Asplenia, are tough-fronded evergreen ferns, 

 adapted for dry habitats in walls or rocks, with well defined 

 linear spore heaps covered with perfect smooth-edged 

 indusia, and they are little liable to variation. The 

 Athyrium, on the other hand, is a fragile-fronded, perfectly 

 deciduous species, only adapted for moist habitats in the 

 soil proper, has a ragged horseshoe-like indusium, and 

 ranks amongst the most variable of all ferns, and yet all 

 these differences are ignored and it is ranked with the 

 Asplenia because of a fancied resemblance between the 

 indusia, i.e. between a horseshoe and a straight line. 

 Despite its delicacy of structure, no fern is easier to grow 

 than the Lady Fern, provided a little consideration is given 

 to its need for moisture. Given a little shade and shelter 

 it will thrive in any garden, while, as we have said, its 

 variability is such that a large garden might be filled with 

 beautiful variants, with which, however, it is not our 

 province to deal in this article on the mere raw material, 

 beautiful as it is in itself, which Nature provides so lavishly 

 in ferny districts. Special note should, however, be 

 made that, as a truly deciduous fern, whether normal or 

 varietal, its fronds become discoloured and peiish in the 

 autumn entirely, so that the plant is only represented 

 throughout the winter by a brown stump or caudex, 

 protected, of course, normally by the debris of the perished 

 fronds. Under glass these can safely be removed, but in 

 the open it is best to let them remain. 



As a native fern the Lady Fern is, of course, perfectly 

 hardy, and can therefore hold its own with impunity both 

 in the open and in a cold conservatory. In the latter, 

 however, watering must be attended to sufficiently to 

 prevent entire drying out, since, dead as the plant may 



