186 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE, 
good Specimens of Gymnogramma chrysophylla and G. Lau- 
cheana. 
Gleichenia Mendeli belongs to a class of ferns remarkable for 
their exquisite beauty, but so difficult to cultivate successfully that 
they are not often seen in the collections of amateurs. This species 
is of compact habit and free growth, and succeeds admirably in a 
cool house. 
Pleocnema Leuzeana belongs to the section comprising those. 
of arborescent habit, although it appears to attain a considerable 
age before the formation of a stem commences. The fronds attain a 
length of two or three feet, are very elegantly divided, and of a 
bright glossy green, and under ordinary good cultivation it makes a 
grand specimen, but it is only adapted for spacious structures. 
Polystichum lepidiocaulon resembles the Cyrtomiums in aspect, 
although perfectly distinct from them. The fronds are long and 
narrow, and either acuminate at the apex, or prolonged and pro- 
liferous It is well adapted for the cool fernery, and will probably 
prove quite hardy. As a basket fern, for cool structures, it has few 
equals. é 
Polystichum Diane, recently introduced from St. Helena, is a 
noble greenhouse species, attaining a height of from four to five feet. 
The fronds are elegantly bipinnate and membraneous in texture. 
Like the Pleocnema already referred to, it is a grand fern for large 
houses, but it possesses an advantage over that species in having a 
constitution sufficiently hardy to admit of its successful cultivation 
in a cool house. Binks 
THE CHURCH SPIRE JUNIPER. 
VA OME years ago I obtained from Messrs. Rollison and 
“| Sons, the eminent nurserymen, of Tooting, their beau- 
tiful variety of the Crimean Juniper, which bears the 
name of Juniperus excelsa stricta, and have derived so 
much pleasure from the trees that I wish to recommend 
this variety as the very perfection of a lawn conifer. Its growth is 
remarkably compact, the colour of the delicate leafage a silvery 
glaucous green, and the natural form of the plant is that of a close 
tapering spire, of the pointed Gothic order. We do not, of course, 
wish that all our lawn trees should grow so stiff and precise as this 
does, and a flowing outline with feathery adornments, may be as 
acceptable in a Jawn-tree as the most prim and precise contour of a 
tree that appears as if designed to teach a lesson in geometry. 
Here, however, is the most distinctly geometrical of all the choicer 
kinds of trees, and for the formal linesof the promenade it seems 
peculiarly fitted. It grows slowly, but is perfectly hardy. We 
have had it on wet clay, where it was often swamped for weeks 
together, and in positions exposed to the keen east wind as it comes 
with killing force from the marshes of the river Lea, and have not 
yet seen so muchas aspray killed by wet or frost. A hardier tree 
there is not, and for a vegetable spire, we know not where to 
equal it. S.; i: 
