SECOND WEEK IN DECEMBER 



are deciduous, and should be kept rather dry while dormant, 

 but must never be absolutely without water. 



Cyrtomium falcatum (which has the popular name of the 

 holly fern, although this title is more correctly given to 

 Polystichum lonchitis) has thick shining fronds, which are 

 very handsome and distinct. This plant needs constant 

 : syringing or sponging during the summer, as it otherwise 

 becomes a prey to thrips, which soon spoil its beauty ; but in 

 the winter it stands well in a room, being almost dormant at 

 that time, although evergreen. It is a native of Japan, and 

 ] is fairly hardy ; its variety, with drooping fronds (C. falcatum 

 pendulum), being specially elegant. Then the aspleniums, 

 I many in number, provide us with the favourite room fern 

 A. bulbiferum, with tiny ferns springing from the pores on 

 its fertile fronds, which hang down from the weight of their 

 | progeny, whilst the more finely-cut barren fronds stand erect 

 | and handsome. A very different asplenium is the bird's- 

 I nest fern (A. nidus), a singular plant from Mauritius, India, 

 | &c., which has undivided fronds, something like those of the 

 hart's-tongue fern (scolopendrium), but shorter in length, 

 rising from the centre symmetrically, so as to form a hollow 

 1 basket ; this fern needs a thoroughly saturated atmosphere, 

 | but it requires but little soil (a compost of peat, sand, char- 

 coal, and sphagnum moss suiting it best), as it obtains much 

 nourishment from the aerial roots with which it covers the 

 surface of the pot. 



Again, we have a distinct asplenium in A. palmatum (syn. 

 Hermionitis), which throws up slender dark brown stems 

 about 8 inches high, on each of which expands a palm-like 

 lobed frond, elegantly fringed. Coming from Teneriffe and 

 the Canary Islands, it is not very delicate, and does well in 

 an ordinary greenhouse. 



The beautiful lace-ferns (cheilanthes), as a rule, do better 

 in a greenhouse than in the close moisture of a hothouse ; 

 for their delicate fronds must never be syringed or watered 

 from above ; they also require a porous compost, in which 

 there is a mixture of charcoal in small lumps, with fibrous 

 peat and sand, also an abundance of light and a certain 



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