3o8 



Notes and Gleanings. 



Select Ferns. — Adiantiun Farleyense. — This superb maiden-hair ranks 

 amongst the noblest introductions of modern times : it is at once the rarest and the 

 richest of all the adiantttms, and must for many years to come be valuable ; for it 

 can only be increased by division, and the few who possess plants rather prefer to 

 keep them intact as specimens than to tear them up for multiplication. So many 

 beautiful plants claim our attention as " novelties," that we cannot take interest 

 in all alike, and only a few amongst them all ever acquire any thing like histori- 

 cal fame. This distinction, however, has fallen to Adiantitnt Farleyoise ; and 

 it is not at all surprising that every one who has had a share in introducing- it 

 to the notice of English cultivators should be jealous of any diminution of the 

 credit due to them. The name reminds us of Farley Hill, in the Island of Bar- 



ADIANTUM FARLEYENSK. 



badoes, the residence of T. G. Briggs. Esq., where it was first found. It is a 

 question of some interest, What is Adiantiim Farleyeiise ? The probabilities 

 are all in favor of its being a form of A. tenerum, and it is generally accepted 

 as such ; and a very remarkable form it is, truly. There is another question : 

 Does it ever produce spores ? Mr. Robert Veitch raised a batch of seedlings 

 from supposed spores ; and the result was, not true Farleyense plants, but the 

 quite new and beautiful fern named Adiantiim scuticm (Hibberd), syn. A. 

 Ghiesbreghtii. It is alleged by cultivators who possess large specimens of 

 Farleyense, that it never produces a fertile pinnule ; yet, if it does not, whence 

 came A. scutum, which is as much like a form of tenerum as Farleyense itself ? 

 Our own opinion is, that it does produce true spores occasionally ; and that, as it 



