THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



201 



Son, of York : shall I ever forget 

 your filmy ferns and your picturesque 

 fern-house ? Never, " while memory 

 holds her sway in this distracted 

 globe." 



You will think I have described 

 the state of my own mind instead of 

 the globe, unless I at once give up 

 these generalizations. Where, then, 

 among the ferns shall I begin? what 

 genus first select? It matters but 

 little. Suppose we take that one 

 whose name appears first on this 

 rambling paper — Platycerium. The 

 elk's-horn fern let it be, then, for one 

 species at least is sure to be found in 

 every fernery, no matter how small. 

 Everybody who possesses one species 

 must long to obtain the others, for 

 they are very distinct, and each has 

 a character peculiarly its own. The 

 name Platycerium is a very appro- 

 priate one ; it means a broad horn, 

 and gives a tolerable idea of the ap- 

 pearance the fronds present. P. al- 

 cicorne, which we all know as the 

 elk's-horn fern, was the first species 

 introduced ; it was imported more 

 than fifty years ago, at a time when 

 so many other Australian plants were 

 finding their way into our gardens. 

 It is found not only in Australia, but 

 also in the East Indian islands ; we 

 may therefore expect, that although 

 it may be successfully grown in a 

 cool greenhouse, yet it will not object 

 to a little extra heat. This is just 

 the fact. This, like all the other 

 Platy ceriums, gi'ows naturally upon 

 the trunks of trees. You can, of 

 course, grow it in a pot like any 

 ordinary fern ; but if you wish to see 

 it exhibiting its natural habit, you 

 should humour its whim, and fasten- 

 ing it upon a bit of mossy, rough, 

 bark-covered wood, hang it perpen- 

 dicularly against the wall. The 

 roundish overlapping leaves, which, 

 for want of a better name, botanists 

 have called sterile fronds, and which, 

 in our vocabulary, are called " pot- 

 lids" (though fronds of the other form 

 thrown out from them are frequently 

 destitute of fructification in this 

 species), cover the roots, and keep 

 them moist and cool, while by their 

 decay they furnish material for them 

 to feed upon, new fronds being con- 



tinually added upon the surface of 

 the old ones. The fertile fronds, fork- 

 ing like a horn, project and hang 

 downwards. This and P. stemaria 

 may be increased by division, but 

 none of the other species can be so 

 propagated. In fact, these two make 

 young plants among the sessile 

 (stalkless) fronds which overlap the 

 roots. 



P. stemaria, which I have just 

 mentioned, was introduced some 

 twenty years after the other species 

 named ; it is still comparatively 

 scarce, although it has been so long 

 in the country, and can be propa- 

 gated pretty freely in the way de- 

 scribed. It is a native of West 

 Africa. A friend of mine, writing 

 from Fernando Po, says, " There is 

 hardly a tree to be seen in the forests 

 here which does not bear several 

 plants of P. stemaria — some of the 

 trees are almost covered with it along 

 the trunks — and yet I have not been 

 able to detect the slightest variation 

 from the normal form of the species, 

 although, since I received your last 

 letter I have looked carefully for 

 them. It sometimes grows in enor- 

 mous masses." This is quite a stove 

 plant — cannot, in fact, be overdone 

 in the way of heat, and thoroughly 

 revels in the hot steam from an expan- 

 sion box. That is the posi tion which a 

 plant of mine occupied, and quite 

 surprised me by the rapidity of its 

 growth; the humid heat seemed to 

 delight the plant. And this was how 

 I cultivated it, or to be more correct, 

 this is what I did to it at first, and 

 then I left it to itself; it required no 

 further attention. I got a bit of an old 

 elm branch, cut right through, about 

 fifteen inches long and eight inches 

 in diameter ; this I had hollowed 

 out, so that only a ring of wood was 

 left ; then I had a hole made through 

 from one side, put a piece of board on 

 the bottom, and the receptacle for 

 my plant was perfect. I had a wee 

 bit of P. stemaria growing in a pot, 

 I knocked it out, and drew the roots 

 carefully through the hole at the side 

 of the hollow block, and then filled 

 up the space with peat and leaf- 

 mould. The plant I hung up in the 

 steam, as before-mentioned, intending 



