For !\ov»mber, 1921 



769 



noted that fern growing as a hobby has a much greater 

 following m England than with us, difference in climate 

 being perhaps partly responsible. 



In considering some of the actual fern species which 

 may be grown, we may separate them into two groups as 

 "house ferns'' and "conservatory ferns." The house 

 ferns also come naturally under two headings, as "table 

 ferns'," or fern dish sjjecies, and Boston fern varieties. 



Table Fern Varieties 

 Table ferns include ordinarily about a dozen difTerent 

 kinds. The plants are raised from spores by the million, 

 and sold in small sizes for filling fern dishes for table 

 decoration, often witli a small palm as a center. The 

 fern dish as made up is always a temporary decoration 

 which needs refilling every few weeks, both because the 

 plants are too crowded at the start, because some of the 

 ferns are not adapted to continued house growth, and 

 because fern dishes are rarely given a position in a room 

 selected from the fern's standpoint. \\'hc'n the occupants 

 become too large for the dish they may be repotted into 

 separate pots and continued as house plants, if condi- 

 tions are good. Most of them will do well as individual 

 plants, always excluding conditions of poor air, poor 

 light, and poor care. 



Cyrtoininm falcaium, the Holly fern, is grown in several varieties, 

 Kocli/onJiaiiuin being most popular. The plants show a circle 

 of bright green, glossy, thick leaves, springing once a year from 

 a scaly center. It is a native in Japan and elsewhere in the 

 Orient, and some strains are hardy as far north as New York. 

 Polystichum tsus-siitcnsc (sometimes misspelled and mispro- 

 nounced "ten-semense" ) conies, as its name indicates, from the 

 Tsus-Shima province of China. It produces a bushy growth 

 of dark green, narrow, pointed leaves about fifteen inches high. 

 PcUcca viridis, one of the rock brakes, is native in South Africa. 

 It bears slender stalked, graceful leaves, somewhat suggesting a 

 maidenhair. 

 Adiuiitiiiit cuneatum, the commonest florist's maidenhair fern, is 

 very justly prized for the delicate beauty of its leaves, but is 

 unfortunately not well adapted for house culture. 

 Pteris crctica, in its varieties ll'tlsoni, Riverioniana, and others, 

 Ptcris serrulatii, Pteris oisifnrmis I'ictoricc. and Pteris qiia- 

 driaurita nrgyrcra, are frequently seen as table ferns. All have 

 leaves with long slender leaflets, spreading somewhat like the 

 fingers of the hand, and growing about fifteen inches high as 

 ordinarily grown. Several of the varieties are variegated, a 

 rare condition among ferns. INIost of them will do well in 

 good house conditions, although several require greenhouse 

 culture. 



BosTox Fern X'arieties 

 The Boston fern and some of its varieties are so e.x- 

 ceptionally good for house plant use that they are raised 

 and sold for this purpose almost to the exclusion of any 

 other ferns. Discovered twenty -five years ago as a new 

 variety of the wild sword fern, Xephrohpis cxaltata, 

 the Boston fern has come to be the most popular of all 

 house plants. 



About five years after its recognition, the Boston fern 

 began to give rise to new varieties of which Anna Foster 

 and Piersoni were first. These are little seen now, but 

 other later forms are deservedly popular, Scotti. Roose- 

 veltii, Teddy, Jr., ehisantissuna. Whitiiiani, I'crona and 

 Sniithi. Nearly one hundred named varieties of Boston 

 fern have been introduced, others arc still appearing, 

 but the varieties named above are probably the best for 

 continued growth in the house. The last two, finely 

 continued growth in the house. 



CoNSER\ATORY P^ERNS 



Conservatory ferns include all except the hardy species, 

 and most of these may grow well under glass in cool 

 house or cold frame conditions. The whole fern class is 

 divided by scientists into twevle families : these are further 

 divided into over one hundred and fifty genera, with 



a present total of known species of ab(jut seven thousand. 

 In other words, there are a possible total of seven thou- 

 sand conservatory ferns, not including the hundreds of 

 horticultural varieties. Besides these we may note two 

 groups, sometimes nustakenly called fern allies, which are 

 usually listed with ferns. 1 hese are the selaginellas and 

 lycopodiums, related to the Christmas greens, ground 

 pine, and the horsetails or scouring rushes. The latter 

 group is without horticultural significance, but selagin- 

 ellas are of considerable importance and form beauti- 

 ful conservatory plants. 



Marattice.*: ; include two well-known horticultural genera, 

 .Inyioplcns and Marattia, ferns with coarse leaves which may 

 reach twenty feet in length. Easily grown and propagated. 

 hvMENOPHVLL..\CE.-E, Or tihny ferns. There are five hundred 

 species in two genera, Hymcnophyllum and Trichomanes, noted 

 for the e.xtreme delicacy of their leaves, which may be actually 

 transparent. All small ferns requiring special cultivation, even 

 in a greenhouse. 

 CvATHEACE--K, the tree ferns. Include si.x genera, with four — 

 Alsopbila, Cibolimn, Cyathca, and Dicksonia — best known in 

 cultivation. The tree ferns are the noblest of all ferns. Pic- 

 ture such a plant with a crown of beautifully divided leaves 

 many feet in length, borne on a slender unbranched trunk. 

 Some tree ferns grow to a height of eighty feet ; others are 

 low with only a short stem. Over five hundred species have 

 been described. Best known of these are two or three species 

 of Cibotinin. The large fern often seen in the windows of re- 

 tail florists' shops, a single plant nearly filling a whole window 

 with its pale green leaves, is generally Cibolium Schiedei. The 

 "Scythian Lamb," a Chinese wonder of the days of Marco 

 Polo's successors, was a plant-animal which grew supported on 

 an abdominal cord, and fed by rotating on this until it had 

 eaten all the vegetation within reach. In reality it is a "tree" 

 fern with a reclining trunk densely covered with brown woolly 

 scales. 

 Os.MUNDACE.E, the "flowering fern" family, has three genera: 

 0.r);!j(;!rffl, with three common native hardy species, and some 

 tropical kinds, Todea and Leptoplcris, Australasian, the latter 

 with filmy leaves. The whole family has only about twenty 

 species. 

 ScHiz.-E.».CE.E. This family has four genera and over one hundred 

 species, some of odd character. The best known in cultivation 

 are species of Lygodium, the climbing ferns, whose leaves have 

 a very e.xtended growth, sometimes twining and climbing one 

 hundred feet in length. Others, like our native hardy Lygodium. 

 the Hartford fern, reach only a few feet in length' 

 PoLYPom.vcE.E, with more than one hundred genera and about five 

 thousand species, includes all our commonest ferns. So many 

 of these are important horticultnrally that only a sketchy ac- 

 count can be attempted. The family is divided into "tribes" 

 according to the arrangement of the spore cases on the backs 

 of the leaves. 



In one tribe, those spore cases form large patches. Here we 

 find one of the oddest leaved but most prized of fern genera, 

 Platycerinm, the stag-horn fern, with a dozen species, and with 

 leaves very suggestive of the antlers of a deer. .Another tribe 

 has round uncovered "dots" of spore cases, and includes Polypo- 

 dimn. the largest of all fern genera, with perhaps a thousand 

 species, many important horticultnrally. Another tribe with mar- 

 ginal lines of spore cases includes Adiiintu}n, or maidenhair, with 

 one hundred species ; Pteris with one hundred and si.xty ; Cerop- 

 tcris, the gold and silver ferns, and other well-known forms. 



In yet another tribe we find Asplenium, Btechnum. Diplacium, 



and others, all well known as beautiful ferns. .Another tribe 



gives us Cyrtomiiim. with the common table fern species already 



mentioned. Pvlystielunn and Dryopleris, with hundreds of species, 



a genus second in size to Polypodium. In the tribe with-iVc/>/iro- 



lepis. and the Boston fern, there arc other important Xephrolepis 



species, and also Dennstiedlia. Odoiitnsoria. and DavaUia, one of 



the most highly prized types. DavaUia includes with others two 



s|)ecics sold as "fern balls," which arc made-up arrangements of 



the creeping stems of two Japanese species, put together while in 



a resting condition. When given water these stems renew growth 



and become covored with delicate finely divided leaves. 



CER.vTOPTERin.vcE.E. Sai.vinm.ace.i:. and M.\rsii.i.\ce.e. These are 



three families of water plants. Ceraloptcris has five species, 



fern-like in appearance, with two species in use in aquaria. The 



Marsilicieecr. also aquatic, has one genus, Marsilia, with two 



cultivated species whose leaves are like four-lcavcd clover. 



The Sah-iitiaeea-, with Sah'iiiia and AcoIIa. are little floating 



plants, unlike ferns in looks but really related to them. Sah-inia 



has two rows of roundish hairy leaves, less than an inch long. 



Acolh is much smaller. A whole plant is less than an inch 



(Continued on page 772) 



