THE FLORAL WORLD AND GABDEN GUIDE. 



55 



Multifido-cristatum. — This is a 

 crowned form, and might with pro- 

 priety have been designated " Corona- 

 tum." The frond consists of a Ions; 

 rachis, which terminates in a forked, 

 leafy, crispy tuft, which is continued 

 downwards for an inch or so in the 

 form of a narrow leafy margin, which 

 is sometimes divided into crested 

 lobes. It is rare, curious, extremely 

 beautiful, and, fortunately, very con- 

 stant. 



Multiforme presents the distinctive 

 features of several other varieties, and 

 is a true composite. 



Omnilacerum. — The lobes are irre- 

 gularly pinnatifid, as in Cambricum, 

 the lobules being long and narrow, and 

 the lobes terminating in attenuated 

 points, so as to have a "horned" 

 appearance. 



Semilacerum. — This is the " Irish 

 Polypody," and a proper companion 

 both in habit and aspect to the beau- 

 tiful " Welsh Polypody." The frond 

 consists of a long racliis, the leafy 

 part being six to eight inches broad, 

 with narrow divisions deeply divided 

 into slenderly toothed lobules, the 

 upper part of the frond bluntly and 

 broadly toothed only, and this di- 

 minishing gradually. Unlike the 

 Welsh Polypody, this is tolerably 

 fruitful, and the plants produced from 

 the spores are tolerably uniform in 

 character, and preserve all the dis- 

 tinctive peculiarities of the variety. 

 It is one of the finest evergreen hardy 



ferns we possess, and should be in 

 every collection. 



Serrato-truncatum. — The divisions 

 toothed, and the ends appearing as if 

 bitten off, 



BEMILACERUIT. 



Suprasorifemm. — Of the same form 

 as the species, but bearing its spores 

 occasionally on the vpper side of the 

 frond. It is not constant, but the 

 most curious sport known. It puts 

 one in mind of some of the anomalous 

 organizations met with in Australia. 

 Shiklet Hibbebd. 



THE IVY. 



(An Abridgment of a Paper read before the Central Society of Horticulture.) 

 BY SHIRLEY HIBBEBD, ESQ., E.E.H.S. 



{Continued from page 31.) 



Does Ivy injure Tkees and 

 Walls ? — Observations of the growth 

 of ivy will, I think, establish two con- 

 clusions — first, that it never benefits 

 the tree to which it clings ; that it 

 tends slowly and surely to destroy the 

 means of its support, and, as some- 

 times happens in the affairs of men, 

 the parasite becomes the usurper, and 

 the monarch of the forest succumbs 



at last to the insidious enemy to which 

 it first afforded the means to lift its 

 head above the earth on which it else 

 must have lain prone and helpless. 

 Shakspere, ever ready to illustrate 

 the accidents of life by the ways of 

 nature, uses this fact with remarkable 

 effect in the " Tempest " (i. 2), where 

 Prospero recounts to his daughter the 

 story of his wrongs, he compares 



