ON THE CULTIVATION OF FERNS. 47 



their fronds can come within the influence of the spray, 

 and the points of their roots touch the stream without 

 being immersed in it. 



So moist is both the actual position, adjacent to 

 oozing or trickling water, and the atmosphere surround- 

 ing the True Maidenhair and the Annual Maidenhair, that 

 nothing short of the protection of glass will suffice for their 

 successful cultivation ; and for the former the soil should 

 be an extemporisation of the limestone rock and leaf- 

 mould and rocky detritus, out of and in which the 

 Maidenhair naturally grows, whilst for the latter the 

 imitation of the soft, rich soil of its native shady and 

 dripping hedge-bank will suit it best. 



Soft leaf-soil under shady rocks best pleases the Wild 

 Parsley Fern, and a rockery habitat of as nearly a similar 

 kind as possible in the garden will meet its home re- 

 quirements. The only substitute for the dark and 

 dripping caverns, and the moist and shaded rocky 

 crevices where the Bristle Fern grows, is a close covering 

 of glass that excludes the outward air, and rich, sandy, 

 leafy soil ; and just such conditions as these are what 

 the Filmy Ferns require, for their natural haunts are 

 similar to those of Trichomanes radicans. 



Moonwort and Adders-tongue seem to need the com- 

 panionship, for some mysterious reason, of grassy roots, 

 and, therefore, they should be taken up from their 

 native homes with the grass surrounding them, and the 

 attention of the cultivator must be directed as much to 

 the grassy accompaniments as to the ferns themselves, 

 that they may be kept fresh and healthy. 



All the Polypodies love best moist leaf- soil, amongst 

 rocks ; and the garden rockery, or the rockery of the fern- 

 case, is the place for them. 



The Shield Ferns confess the ferny love for leaf-mould, 

 but they like to toy with the sunshine, and hence they 

 are, perhaps, of all ferns placed in the garden, the most 

 hardy and bold, for they will thrive almost anywhere, 



