482 



THE FERN FAMILY. 



Clough. Clayton Vale. Meadows near Jackson's Boat. Reddish, 

 with the moonwort. Styal. Lawn at Norcliffe. (Mr. McLaren.) 

 Mobberley, abundant. (Mr. Holland.) 



Curtis, iii. 552 ; E. B. ii. 108. 



Two or three other ferns are consiclei'ed by some to belong to the Manchester 

 Flora, viz. : — 



Asplenium Adiantum-nigriim. Once grew in a draw-weU at Boothstown, and 



once on a wall at Eccles. (J. S.) " Stone-quarries near Winwick." 

 Asplenium marinum. " Hulme Stone-quarry, between Wamngton and Newton." 

 Aspidium cristatum. On a moss at Wybunbuiy, near Crewe, sparingly. (Mr. 

 Leigh.) 



The rare beauty and diversity of the ferns has of late years rendered them 

 great favourites with the amateur cultivator. A garden now seems incomplete 

 without its ferneiy, and a green-house unfinished if there be not somewhere a 

 little rockery or special corner, where the sweet brightness of their tender green 

 shall yield a perennial pleasure. Collections of English ferns are exceedingly 

 numerous, even within a little distance of the town. Mr. Feri'is's, in Victoria 

 Park, is iu every way complete and beautiful ; and the same may be said of the 

 fernery at Wythenshawe Hall, the charming seat of T. W. Tatton, Esq. The 

 finest disjilays of stove and gi-een-house ferns are at the Belle- Vue Gardens, Mr. 

 Yates's, at Timperley, and Mr. Hammond's, at Levenshulme, — a noble collection, 

 comprising four hundred species. As regards curious varieties, in addition to a 

 vast number of rare species, no collection within forty or fifty miles can compare 

 with Messrs. Stansfield's at Todmorden. Their stoves and green-houses are 

 fiUed with the most extraordinary ferns in nature, — forms many of them so 

 wonderful as to make imagination true, and the plants all in the highest state of 

 vigour. They have no less than forty-four distinct varieties of the hail's-tongue, 

 twenty of the lady-fern, ten of the hard-fern, and eight of the common shield- 

 fern. Among the choice exotics ai-e the following : — 



Adiantum concinnum, 



" caudatum, 



" curvatum, 



Asplenium prt«morsum var lacerum. 



" brachypteron, 



" nidus, 



" caudatum, 



" zamin'foliura, 

 Cheilanthes Alabaraensis, 



" frigida, 



" radiata, 



Drynaria coronanH, 



" musfufolia, 

 Cibotium Baromutz, 

 Balautium Culcita, 



Davallia Nova Zeylandii, 



" dissecta, 



" tenuifolia, 

 Gleichenia microphylla, 



" flabellata, 

 Didymochlicna truncatula, 

 Litobrockia Karsteniana, 

 Lomaria Magellanica, 



" Chiliensis, 

 Nephrolepis Davallioides, 

 Leucostegia chtcrophylla, 

 Nothochliuna Hookerii, 



" chrysopliylla, 



Platylomu tenuifolia, 

 Polypodium areolatum. 



