282 



THE FLORAL WOELD AND GARDEN aUIDE. 



tlie house. Then its miniature excellences 

 would be inspected, and the dense silver 

 coating of the under sides of the little tri- 

 angular fronds set off against a few blocks 

 of dark stone pkeed around it. Pteris 

 atropurpurea I got at last of Mr. Chit ty, 

 of Stamford Ilill, wlio has a regular cor- 

 respondence with North America, and is 

 continually in receipt of consignments of 

 ferns. It is a true Pteris, as may be seen 

 at a glance : the stems are rosy-purple, 

 the fronds divided in the way of the bar- 

 ren fronds of cronata, and their colour a 

 dark grayish-green. It is as unfit for the 

 Wardian case as any fern in cultivation ; it 

 goes mouldy even when ju full growth, 

 and, whether kept moist or dry, whether 

 ventilated freely or shut close, mildew ap- 

 pears on the young fronds, even before 

 they are fairly unrolled. Of course, the 

 closer it is kept, the worse is its appear- 

 ance ; but the best management will not 

 suffice to make it prosper. I moved my 

 plant to a back shelf of a house where 

 Onoclea sensibilis and Neplirodium molle 

 corymbiferum, with a few other ferns of 

 curious habit, were doing well, but it still 

 refused to prosper. I then planted it out 

 on a small rockery in a north aspect, and, 

 though nearly dead from long confine- 

 ment, it made a new start at once, and 

 proved itself to be a first-rate hardy fern. 



The mention of the Crested Nephro- 

 dium molle reminds me that my plant, 

 which I had of Mr. Sim in the summer of 

 1858, made a splendid centre to a AVar- 

 dian case. It grew freely, threw up plenty 

 of its dense parsley-like fronds, and proved 

 as hardy as the species, so that this most 

 remarkable of all fern varieties may be 

 grown wherever it can be kept from frost, 

 or say not to go lower than 25" any time all 

 winter. At that temperature it becomes 

 deciduous, and must therefore be kept 

 rather dry ; but on the .ipproach of spring 

 it starts freely, and every season increases 

 in the size of the crown so as to bear divi- 

 sion for increase. 



I like the principle of associating plants 

 botanically, when it is possible, and on this 

 principle I planted a sixteen-inch fern 

 shade with a set of Davallias, and very 

 pretty they look with their orange-coloured 

 and tawny rhizomes, creeping, like lizards, 

 over the little blocks of granite that are 

 strewed on the surface. The true hare's- 

 foot, D. canariensis, never does so well as 

 in a pot in the greenhouse, where it sends 

 out strong claws that grasp the outside of 

 the rim, and frequently hang down nearly 

 to the bottom of the pot, throwing out 

 fronds all round. In this state of growth 



it is a pretty object for suspension, and 

 should be grown for the purpose in a con- 

 trivance of bark or hazel-rods. My set in 

 the fern shade consist of dissecta, which 

 also answers for suspending ; elegans ; so- 

 lida, excellent in a glass case and always 

 sliining with health; polyantha, crimson 

 stalks and very glossy green fronds ; and 

 pentaphylla, a quick -growing, fragile- 

 looking, but nevertheless hardy, kind. 

 With these, surfacing plants are not re- 

 quisite, on account of t!ie curious and in- 

 teresting manner in which tlieir prostrate 

 stems run along tlie ground and clutch the 

 pieces of rock placed amongst them. Se- 

 laginellas make pretty collections for such 

 cases, but instead of putting out good 

 specimen plants I prefer to take cuttings, 

 root them in small pots under bell-glasses, 

 and then plant tliem, after well saturating 

 the soil witli boiling water. Martensii, 

 surrounded with cscsin, will soon fill a 

 shade twenty inches high, and form one 

 of the most beautiful ornaments for a 

 drawing-room that can be devised in the 

 whole catalogue of cryptogaraic vegetation. 

 The yellow Galeotti is too rambling for a 

 shade, unless raised from a cutting, kept 

 close by a little judicious trimming, and 

 when no longer manageable, owing to its 

 straggling growth, turned out and replaced 

 by a fresh young plant. Formosa makes 

 a fine centre, to be surfaced with serpens ; 

 and ineequifoliais another good centre-piece 

 for a surfacing round it of denticulata. 



"With warmth, shade, and moisture, 

 Selagiuellas may be propagated to any ex- 

 tent. Choose a healthy and vigorous- 

 looking shoot, well-supplied with rootlets 

 that are not the least shrivelled. Pill a 

 thumb pot with very sandy peat, nip the 

 lower part of the cutting back to one or 

 two of the best rootlets, and insert it ten- 

 derly just deep enough to cover them, and 

 press the soil gently. If inclined to spring 

 out of the loose stuff, peg the stems in 

 their places, or lay a piece of tile over the 

 rooting joint, cover with a bell-glass, keep 

 moderately moist, and in a very short 

 time the cutting will start from the point 

 and grow away according to its proper 

 character. The smallest scrap is sufficient 

 if it has a healthy rootlet, but it is rare that 

 good plants can be got, except of the pros- 

 trate kinds, if the point of the cutting 

 is ren oved. From a scrap of an incli 

 long, I have had three or lour square I'eet 

 of c£esia in one season by leading the 

 growths regularly and covering the rootlets 

 with soil as fast as they were produced. 

 How it is that we rarely see Sclagiaellas 

 except at the nurseries and in the best 



