September 24, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



275 



beauty of those deep rieh tones, and softer shades of odour, of 

 which I have so long been an earnest advocate — new plants 

 that are little known, and among which lovers of the flower 

 garden will find such varied beauty and sterling merit as will 

 in reaUty create an etiiharriis de richesses, I must defer the 

 remainder till next week. — Edward Luokhukst. 



COMPABATIVE GROWTH OF TREE FERNS. 



The following paper on the comparative growth of tree 

 Ferns, read by Dr. Moore of Glasnevin at the recent meeting 

 of the British Association at Belfast, will not be without 

 interest now that indoor ferneries are getting so much in 

 vogue, and tree Ferns so much in request for them : — 



Considering that well-authenticated data concerning the 

 nature and rates of growth of tree Ferns would possess a cer- 

 tain amount of interest, I have arranged some notes made 

 from time to time on this subject on kinds which have come 

 constantly under my observation. At the beginning of the 

 period I purpose to review there were only very few of those 

 beautiful plants introduced to Europe, and even yet the num- 

 ber cultivated in collections is few compared with those which 

 are now known and described. The idea which is generally 

 entertained concerning those plants is that they grow very 

 Blowly, and that the stems of them, which are brought to this 

 country from their native habitats, must have taken a great 

 number of years to attain to the heights of 10 to 12 feet, which 

 are about the largest sizes that are introduced. I have, how- 

 ever, been able to prove that the growths of several of the kinds 

 are by no means so slow as they are supposed to be. We have 

 grown at Glasnevin one species from a spore to a height of 

 10 feet in less than twenty years. It was, however, one of the 

 most robust and quickest-growing among the Australian and 

 Polynesian species, the Cyathea meduUaris (Swartz). When 

 the late Dr. William Harvey visited some of the Polynesian 

 Islands in 1853, he sent to Glasnevin a small packet of the 

 spores of that Fern, or rather the variety of it, which differs 

 from the normal New Zealand form in having more slender 

 fronds, with their ultimate pinnules more divided, along with 

 several minor differences, which have led authors to consider 

 it a distinct species from the New Zealand plant. It is the 

 Cyathea Mertensiana of Bongard, which the late Sir William 

 Hooker, in one of his last works, " Synopsis Filicum," treats 

 as a mere variety, differing slightly from the normal type. 



A few plants were produced from the spores sent, one of 

 which was grown on as rapidly as possible until 1872, when it 

 had attained a stem 10 feet long in seventeen years. At this 

 period of its growth, owing to some inexplicable cause, it turned 

 sickly, and gradually dwindled away until it died during the 

 present year. There is yet a fine example of the New Zealand 

 form in the Glasnevin collection, which is historically inter- 

 esting, from being one of the first batch of seedlings of this 

 species raised by the late Messrs. Loddiges of Hackney, about 

 the year 1844. Another of the same lot perished in the con- 

 flagration which took place at the Crystal Palace a few years 

 ago. I have no exact note of the time it came to Glasnevin, 

 but suppose it must have been in 1845, when it was very small. 

 It is now a noble-looking Fern, with a strong stem 11 feet high, 

 and fronds from 8 to 10 feet long. These examples afford us a 

 tolerably correct idea of the sizes the stems of this species 

 attain within thirty years. The next species I have reliable 

 information on is that which is generally known in collections 

 as Alsophila excelsa (R. Brown), but which I have reason to 

 Buspect is Alsophila Cooperi (Hooker). There are certainly 

 two very distinct species in the Glasnevin collection under the 

 specific name excelsa, the common Australian kind, and that 

 from Norfolk Island. The latter was grown from spores col- 

 lected by the late Mr. John Veitch, taken from plants growing 

 on Norfolk Island, and there are also plants in the same collec- 

 tion raised from spores taken from the fronds in the Kew 

 herbarium, from which the late Sir William Hooker described 

 his Alsophila Cooperi. I can see no difference between the 

 latter and plants sent from Australia by my brother, Mr. C. 

 Moore of Sydney, as A. excelsa ; but there is a great difference 

 between them and the Norfolk Island plants brought by Veitch, 

 which may be the true A. excelsa of Brown. The first plant 

 of the Australian kind was sent in aWardiau case to Glasnevin 

 in 1850, when it had no woody stem, and the fronds were only 

 about a foot long; it has now a beautiful clean stem, nearly 

 12 feet in height under the fronds, which it has made within 

 the last twenty-four years. I have also been able to observe 

 the growth of Dicksonia antarctica, from a seedling upwards 



to a rather large stem. The plant was obtained in 1840, when 

 it was only about 8 inches high, including fronds ; and now it 

 has a strong thick stem, fully 5 feet high from the surface of 

 the tub in which it grows to where the head of fronds is. These 

 instances, therefore, show that some of the Australian and 

 Polynesian kinds of tree Ferns make their stems quicker 

 than has generally been supposed to bo the case. There are, 

 however, others of them which, so far as my experience con- 

 cerning them extends, grow at a much slower rate. One 

 healthy plant of Alsophila australis (R. Brown) at Glasnevin 

 was obtained when a seedling in 1850 ; and although it has 

 continued strong and healthy ever since, the rhizomatous 

 stem is only now taking an upright direction. Another plant 

 of the same species, which has been cultivated nearly as many 

 years, has only begun to form an upright stem lately ; and it, 

 too, has continued healthy throughout. A further instance is 

 afforded of the slow progress many of those plants make during 

 the earlier years of their growth, from a plant of Cyathea 

 dealbata, which was obtained in 1855, and has grown vigor- 

 ously ever since ; yet the woody stem has only begun to form 

 within the last eighteen months. Those, and other similar 

 examples, lead me to believe that many kinds of tree Ferns 

 make slow progress uutil their stems form and take an upright 

 position ; after which they grow much faster, until they attain 

 a height of 12 or 11 feet, when the growth becomes slower and 

 more consolidated. The observations I have had opportunities 

 of making on South American tree Ferns are confined to a 

 few species. 



During the year 1858 the Hon. Judge O'Reilly, then resid- 

 ing in Jamaica, sent us from thence small plants of Cyathea 

 arborea (Smith), and Cyathea aculeata (Willdenow), in a 

 Wardian case, when they were without hardened stems. They 

 soon began to grow vigorously, and the former has now a 

 clean stem 13 feet high, the latter has one 5J feet high, which 

 they have made in sixteen years. Examples of the slow 

 increase in height of Fern stems after they attain a certain 

 height have been afforded by both Australian and South 

 American kinds. Among the latter I may mention a fine 

 plant of Cyathea serra (Willd.), which came to Glasnevin in 

 1802, from Lady Dorothy Nevill's collection at Dangstein, 

 when it had a stem nearly 15 feet high. It has continued in 

 good health ever since, but it has hardly increased 3 feet in 

 twelve years. Among the New Zealand kinds, fine plants of 

 Dicksonia squarrosa (Swartz), and Cyathea dealbata (Swartz), 

 were obtained in 1868, with stems 6 and 8 feet high. They have 

 both continued in good health ever since, yet their stems have 

 scarcely increased a foot in length in six years. To contrast 

 with these, I may mention a plant of the beautiful Cyathea 

 princeps (J. Smith), which has made a stem nearly 7 feet high 

 within fourteen years. 



The foregoing observations have been made upon plants 

 growing in conservatories to which the public are daily 

 admitted, and, consequently, the atmosphere must necessarily 

 be kept in a much drier state than is favourable to the 

 healthy development of those plants. I have the experience 

 of some fine examples of several of them which are growing 

 in Dr. Hudson'.s splendid fernery near Dublin at present, 

 and also those of Mr. Bewley's, where in both cases the atmo- 

 sphere is kept close and moist, and with more shade, under 

 which regime they make quicker growth in a given time than 

 they do in the drier and more exposed conservatories at 

 Glasnevin. The foregoing notes have not, however, been 

 arranged for horticultural purposes, but simply to afford some 

 reliable data on the progress of the growth those plants really 

 make, about which one hears so many mythical conjectures 

 respecting the great age of their imported stems. I shall, 

 therefore, not enter farther on the horticultural consideration 

 of the question ; but, before concluding, I may state my belief 

 that one-half, at least, of the many fine examples which have 

 been imported during the last twenty years or so have perished, 

 owing to their being too freely exposed at first, and placed in 

 situations unsuited for them. If they once get thoroughly 

 cheeked by being too dry at the roots or stems, they seldom 

 recover, but gradually lose their fronds and die off. 



In summing-up these brief observations, I have first to state 

 that some of the kinds of tree Ferns grow with greater rapidity, 

 and form their stems in a much shorter period than is generally 

 supposed to be the case. Secondly, After they attain a certain 

 height, the acrogenous buds are formed much closer together, 

 the one above the other, than they are lower down on the stem, 

 hence their elongation is much slower. Thirdly, Some of the 

 sorts which at first form short rhizomatous stems, before they 



