FERNS 175 



canny about ferns lingered on, nevertheless, until 

 much nearer to our own day ; and they were 

 ranked amongst " ditch trumperie," and styled 

 "vile unuseful weeds," and no one dreamed of 

 seeing any beauty in them. Less than a hundred 

 years ago, when the world was being ransacked 

 for plants of all kinds, there were but forty foreign 

 kinds to be found in the rich collections of other 

 plants at Kew, while now the known species may 

 be counted by thousands. 



Ferns are most at home in warm, moist climates, 

 those of temperate regions being considerably 

 fewer ; therefore the species that can be grown 

 with success in the open air in England are some- 

 what limited in number. Whether hardy or 

 tropical, they agree in the main in requiring a 

 certain humidity in their surroundings, both of 

 air and soil ; but there is no rule without exception. 

 I remember finding in Cape Colony two, if not 

 more, small ferns, one of them a cheilanthes and 

 the other probably a pell&a, perfectly happy, grow- 

 ing on the open veldt, amongst drifts of boulders 

 as hot and dry as the burning South African sun 

 could make them ! 



As a fact, ferns rejoice not only in moisture, 

 but in light. Though, speaking generally, hot 

 sunshine is not naturally suitable to their wants, 

 yet in cultivation it is found that they succeed 

 best in fairly open spots, screened, but not too 

 much overshadowed. May it not often be noticed 

 that the common brake fern spreads outwards in 

 the direction of the light, away from, rather than 

 towards, the darker recesses of the forest ? It may 



