164 THE FLOEAL WOELD AIS'D GAEDEN GUIDE. 



moisture. The proper time to repot is just before they commence their 

 season of growth. The stove species require the same treatment, but in a 

 higher temperature ; during winter they ought never to be exposed to 

 a temperature below 50°, and all through the summer should have 

 plenty of air, and a temperature of from GO to 80°. The species most 

 admired and generally grown, and respecting which, therefore, some 

 special remarks may be made, is — 



Ardisia crenulata. — This forms a finely habited shrub, rising to a 

 height of ten to fifteen feet ; but, as it becomes fruitful at an early 

 age, specimens of two or three feet high are often superbly laden with 

 huge bunches of its fine scarlet berries. The best way to raise a stock 

 by this is to sow the berries in a mixture of equal parts peat and loam, 

 and plunge the pot in a tan-bed, or place it on the tank of a propa- 

 gating pit, and surround it to the rim with cocoa-nut-fibre waste. As 

 soon as the plants are large enough to handle, pot them separately in 

 thimble or thumb pots, the latter preferable, if there is sufficient room ; 

 the soil to be peat, with one-third sand. Place them in heat again and 

 shift on as they require it, and, as soon as put into 48-sized pots, let 

 the compost be equal parts peat, loam, leaf-mould, rotten dung, and 

 silver sand. From this shift we begin to cultivate them as specimens, 

 and generally the handsomest plants will be formed by allowing them 

 to grow as they please ; but, if they are to be artificially formed into 

 dense bushes, pinch out the points of the young shoots when they 

 have made half their growth. If not too largely shifted as they grow, 

 they will fruit early, and become thenceforward highly ornamental. As 

 the berries begin to colour the new growth begins above them, and this 

 new growth shows bloom before the berries fall, so that it is but for 

 a short period that the plants are otherwise than ornamental. To 

 prolong the period of their beauty never gather the berries, but place 

 the plants so that, as they fall naturally, none of them will be lost. 

 Plants struck from cuttings of half ripe wood fruit earlier than 

 seedlings, but do not make such handsome or such vigorous-growing 

 specimens. It requires a strong heat to strike them either from stem 

 or root cuttings, 



GREENHOUSE PERNS. 



Polypodium Henclimannii. — This magnificent fern is one of the 

 most remarkable in the great collection at Kew, where it has stove 

 treatment ; but, as it can be grown in a warm greenhouse with the 

 greatest success with only ordinary care, it is well worth a conspicuous 

 position among useful greenhouse ferns. It is a native of Mexico, and 

 according to Lowe (Brit, and Exot. Ferns, i. 93, where it is beautifully 

 figured), was introduced in 1848, and up to the present time always 

 regarded as a scarce fern. The fronds are glabrous, pinnate. The 

 pinnze being linear-lanceolate and of a peculiar dark bluish-green colour, 

 and having a varnished appearance. The rich ochreous brown of the sori, 

 which are abundantly produced, contrasts most beautifully with the 

 ground colour of the fronds on the underside ; and the sori being large 



