28 



THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



lums. These were more difficult 

 things to manage ten or twelve years 

 ago than perhaps any other plants 

 that could be mentioned. They baf- 

 fled us at first as much as the orchids 

 did our fathers. But the difficulty 

 has been overcome, and they are now 

 no more trouble, if, indeed, they are 

 so much, as some of the gold and sil- 

 ver ferns (Gymnogramma). Delicate 

 and fragile, with their semi-trans- 

 parent fronds, they look like tufts of 

 the most beautiful sea-weeds, plucked 

 from the decorations of a mermaid's 

 ocean-home. More progress has 

 within the last few years been made 

 in introducing new species belonging 

 to these two genera than amon# any 

 other group of ferns. Messrs. Back- 

 house and Son, of York, have paid 

 special attention to the cultivation of 

 the filmy ferns, and have been re- 

 warded with the success they de- 

 served. 



Simultaneously with the love of 

 ferns grew up also a taste for other 

 plants remarkable for the beauty of 

 their foliage. This taste led to the 

 collecting of Caladiums, Marantas, 

 and all other plants possessed of large 

 and showy leaves, and the more 

 highly they were coloured, the more 

 richly striped, or blotched with crim- 

 son, scarlet, or pure white, the more 

 valuable they were. And very splen- 

 did a collection of them looked inter- 

 spersed with the lively green, deli- 

 cately cut fronds of the ferns. But 

 no one ever dreamed that the two 

 qualities would some day be found com- 

 bined in the same plant, and that plant 

 a fern. But, as you have often been 

 told, there are more things in heaven 

 and earth than are dreamed of in our 

 philosophy, and so there was a great 

 surprise in store for us. It is six 

 years ago now since the first varie- 

 gated tern — Pteris argyrrca — was 

 sent out by Mr. J. Veitch. It took 

 the gardening world by storm, we 

 were all mad until we had got it. 

 There's an old adage which tells 

 us, " That it never rains but it 

 pours ;" and it was proved true in this 

 case. 



We should all have thought that a 

 variegated fern was an impossible 

 sight — a thing we never should or 



could see. But we had no sooner 

 added this one to our collections, and 

 began to watch the creamy striped 

 fronds uncurl themselves, wishing it 

 may be that they would not grow so 

 high, but that they would spread 

 themselves so that they could be bet- 

 ter seen, when the rumour passed 

 round among us that two more varie- 

 gated ferns were introduced. M. 

 Linden had obtained the lovely 

 Pteris tricolor from the East Indies, 

 and a perfect gem it proved. A 

 young plant of this grown in strong 

 heat, with two or three half-developed 

 fronds, is as beautiful a thing as one 

 could wish to look upon. The other 

 one, which was named Pteris cretica 

 albo-lineata, Mas imported from the 

 botanic garden at Ja^a to that of 

 Kew, at about the same time. This 

 is decidedly the most useful, if not 

 the most beautiful plant of the three. 

 It does better in a greenhouse than 

 in a stove, in fact it is nearly hardy. 

 If I only grew half-a-dozen ferns this 

 would be one of them. It had a very 

 narrow escape after its long voyage, 

 for when the vessel reached the docks 

 in the Thames, the men in landing the 

 case in which it and other valuable 

 plants had been sent, managed to let it 

 drop overboard. The glass roof was 

 smashed, and half the plants washed 

 out, but the sailors happened to pick 

 up this one and some few others, and 

 with a handful or two of mud threw 

 them back into the case. There were 

 only two little bits of fronds upon the 

 best plant, and they were broken and 

 injured ; but it was tended by loving 

 hands, and before a twelvemonth had 

 passed away there were thousands of 

 seedlings ready to be distributed to 

 those who had anything new or good 

 to give in exchange. The first plant 

 came as I said from Java ; but since 

 that time Japan has, to a certain ex- 

 tent, been thrown open to our country- 

 men, and we find that this plant is 

 quite common and a great favourite 

 there. 



It is a strange thing that the 

 taste for variegated plants now be- 

 come popular here, has been all the 

 fashion in Japan for ages past. They 

 have in their gardens as many varie- 

 gated plants as we have with all the 



