Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



northern valleys the ferns may still shed their 

 spores and multiply undisturbed. 



The attempt to transplant specimens ot the 

 native ferns from their home in the mountains 

 or by the northern shores to our gardens here, 

 is not as a rule very successful. Even if one 

 can manage to give them adequate shade and 

 sufficient water the air on this southern littoral 

 is too dry. The charming ivy leaf fern 

 {^Asplenium hemionitis), which grows in great pro- 

 fusion below two thousand feet on the northern 

 slopes, will live in a rockery here, even as 

 it will flourish in a pot in a cool house 

 in England. But it will not produce the 

 enormous fronds of its wild state. The curious 

 liverwort {Adiantum remforme)yVfh[ch. is peculiar 

 to this and some other Atlantic islands, delights 

 to grow on the face of damp rocks in the 

 ravines of the southern side, and is a little 

 less intolerant of removal. Its stiff heart- 

 shaped fronds with their outer row of spores 

 dangling on delicate stems, never fail to please. 

 Woodwardia radicanSy which has been found in 

 the northern valleys with fronds eight or ten 

 feet long, will grow anywhere. The common 

 Maidenhair {Adiantum capillus Veneris) is very 



i8o 



