366 THE TLORAL WOKLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



ferns which naturally grow upon rocks or old walls are always 

 difficult to transplant, except they are very young, and this fern has 

 never yet been raised from spores in this country. So although the 

 plant may have been frequently sent, yet it has never arrived in 

 good condition until recently. 



The fronds are thrown up from the root in tufts ; they are 

 flabellate, or fan-shaped, and often, especially when dry, droop down 

 and are pressed against the stipes. The usual form of the fronds is 

 with the ultimate divisions cut into two or three teeth at the apex, 

 hut there is a variety with fronds much more deeply divided. If you 

 have friends in India, you should beg of them to send you fresh 

 spores of this fern ; for if you could raise a good stock of it, you 

 would be doing good service to all fern-growers. Everybody who 

 has seen this fern would be sure to want to grow it. It is so entirely 

 unlike everything else in creation, that it never can be mistaken 

 after being once seen. It has been called Asplenium radiatum. 

 Konig and others called it an Acrostichum (a genus made to include 

 all sorts of plants, as I said before). Fee called it an Acropteris ; 

 and Presl put it into the genus Blechnum. Its distinct habit, as 

 well as the more minute botanical characters by which it is distin- 

 guished, fully entitle it to a name of its own, and a very appropriate 

 one is that by which it is generally known now — Actinopteris 

 radiata. 



ROSES EOR THE GARDEN. 



[HERE are roses and roses — the stately queens of the 

 exhibition stage, and their not less attractive, though 

 less pretentious, sisters whose true position is in the 

 garden. It has been too much the fashion for some 

 time past to lose sight of these, in the desire to obtain 

 large, showy, and it may be perfect blooms, so that many have 

 almost disappeared from trade catalogues, and the grounds of the 

 nurseryman. Roses of this kind, however, are so valuable for the 

 general purposes of amateurs, that it is doing good service from 

 time to time to bring their claims and merits into light, though in so 

 doing it may be necessary to go back to ancient lists ; scarcely so 

 ancient, however, as the Hon. Mrs. Gore's book upon roses, where, 

 out of some hundreds of varieties and species, not six are at present 

 known. These free-flowering, pretty, and hardy kinds are capable 

 of many interesting applications as objects of border decoration. 

 Some form admirable bushes for the corners of intersecting walks, 

 where they may be left to grow, sparely pruned, in natural luxuri- 

 ance ; or they may be trained over rustic arches, improvised from 

 spare branches of shrubs and trees, to form vistas from distant 

 points of view. Others, again, are especially adapted to ramble 

 over " banks and braes," among fantastic roots and stumps ; or to 

 form a canopy of blossoms for summer-houses and bowers. Others, 

 again, will clamber skywards, flinging flowery festoons as they 

 ascend ; or serve to conceal rough lences, or unsightly boundaries, 



