1 86 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



Many hardy Ferns are excellent for association with hardy 

 flowers, and many may be grouped with evergreen rock and hill 

 plants in forming borders and groups of evergreen plants. Though 

 we have enough native Ferns in these islands to give us very 

 fine effects, as we see at Penrhyn, or wherever Ferns are boldly 

 grouped, some of the finest Ferns we see at Newick, and also 

 at Rhianva and other gardens are natives of North America. 

 Foremost among the strong - growing hardy exotic kinds, there 

 are the handsome North American Osmunda cinnamomea, and 

 O. Claytoniana, O. gracilis, a very pretty species of particularly 

 slender habit ; the Sensitive Fern (Onoclea), Dicksonia punctiloba, 

 the beautiful Canadian Maiden-hair, the American Ostrich Feather 

 Fern, Lastrea Goldiana, Woodwardia virginica, all of North 

 American origin and attaining between 2 feet and 3 feet in height. 

 Among the smaller Ferns are Aspidium nevadense, novaboracense 

 and thelypteroides, Asplenium angustifolium, Athyrium Michauxi 

 and Woodwardia angustifolia, all of which grow from 18 inches to 24 

 inches. Allosorus acrostichoides, the handsome Polypodium hexa- 

 gonopterum, Woodsia obtusa, oregana and scopulina, and also two 

 pretty Selaginellas, viz., oregana and Douglasi. All these are of 

 small dimensions, varying as they do from 6 inches to 12 inches in 

 height. The pretty Hypolepis anthriscifolia of South Africa ; the 

 robust Lastrea atrata, from India ; the Japanese Lastrea decurrens, 

 the massive Struthiopteris orientalis, also a native of Japan, and the 

 pretty Davallia Mariesi are all equal in hardiness to any of our British 

 deciduous Ferns. 



Some of the evergreen Ferns, whether British or exotic, which 

 stand the severity of our climate, are as hardy as those which lose 

 their leaves in winter, and no Fern could be hardier 

 Evergreen hardy than the various small-growing Aspleniums, which 

 Ferns. grow in old walls exposed to severe frosts, such as 



the black stemmed Spleenwort (several), and its 

 pretty crested and notched forms, the little Wall Rue or Rue 

 Fern, the forked and other native Spleenworts. All these are 

 small, seldom exceeding 8 inches in height, while the black Maiden- 

 hair Spleenwort Blechnum and its several beautiful forms usually 

 average from 9 inches to 12 inches in height. Polypodium also 

 contains some handsome evergreen plants ; even the common 

 Polypody is a fine plant in its way, and is seen at its best when 

 growing on a wall, on the branches of a tree, or on the roof of 

 a low house. But by far the handsomest of its numerous forms 

 are the Welsh Polypody, the Irish and the Cornish, and its 

 handsome, finely-cut varieties in which the fronds are of a light 

 and feathery nature. Then there are the more or less heavily 



