26 STOVE FEENS. 



spores or by ike little knobs, late in the autumn, they will survive 

 the winter, and make finer plants the following summer. Sow 

 the spores in a shallow pan filled with light compost, and keep 

 it nearly full of water. To be quite safe sow some in autumn 

 and some in spring. The plants will soon come up, covering 

 the soil at first with flat seed-leaves, which soon send up from 

 the base small fronds ; then is the time to pot them off into 

 thumb-pots, which should be immersed in the water, leaving 

 the young frond above the surface. As they advance in growth 

 give more pot room ; the last shift need not exceed six-inch 

 pots. Attend to this point never allow the surface of the 

 soil, even in the largest pots, to be above 2 inches beneath 

 the surface of the water. We have rather dwelt upon the 

 culture of this curious Fern, because of its being an aquatic, 

 and an annual two circumstances that rarely occur in the 

 Fern tribe. 



CHEILANTHES. 



The assemblage of Ferns under this family name are 

 all exceedingly elegant in form and habit. Many of them 

 thrive best in an intermediate-house, not doing well in any 

 open airy greenhouse, nor in a close moist warm stove. 

 They are marked in some lists as warm greenhouse Ferns ; 

 but then the young cultivator naturally inquires, What is 

 a warm greenhouse ? The only answer must be, A house 

 heated to a degree somewhere between an ordinary greenhouse 

 and a stove : consequently, an intermediate-house. Large 

 must be the establishment that can afford so many different 

 temperatures. To overcome this difficulty we have placed 

 the more delicate species on a shelf near to the front of the 

 ordinary stove, where the air-apertures were placed. These 

 species requiring such a situation are indicated by an 

 asterisk (*). All such should have a large portion of silver 

 sand in the compost, and be sparingly watered, even when 

 freely growing, and the foliage should never be syringed. 



