364 FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



amateur collections. This has also been the case at 

 Kew for the last twenty years, especially as regards 

 Tropical Tree Ferns, many fine plants succumbing to 

 the make-shifts that of necessity had to be resorted 

 to after they had attained a certain height ; but by 

 beginning with young plants, they may be grown for a 

 number of years in houses of the usual average height 

 of ten to twelve feet, as also the large fronded tree- 

 like Lastrea villosa, Litobrochia podophylla, Aspleniinn 

 striatum, Hemidictyon marginatum, and many others 

 of like habit. The latter, at Kew, in a 20-inch pot, 

 produced beautiful fronds, seven feet in height, and 

 which might, with encouragement, soon be made to 

 produce them equal to those of native growth fourteen 

 feet. But in order to get rid of the inconvenient and 

 unsightly look of large pots and tubs, it is best to 

 adopt for these plants the system of natural cultivation 

 explained further on. 



In the " Species Filicum " about one hundred and 

 twenty species of Tree Ferns are described ; but, 

 according to Mr. Moore's " Index Filicum," the 

 number amounts to nearly two hundred. They are 

 widely distributed, chiefly within the tropics. They 

 love shade and solitude, and are generally found at 

 elevations of from three thousand to five thousand feet 

 in the humid regions. In the southern hemisphere 

 they, however, extend much beyond the tropics, their 

 southern limits being New Zealand, Norfolk Island, 

 New South Wales, and Tasmania, where they grow at 

 a lower elevation than within the tropics. On Mount 

 Wellington, in the latter island, Dicksonia Antarctica 

 is found in the greatest abundance, at an elevation 

 of from one thousand five hundred to two thousand 



