10 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Jolt 11, 1907. 



NEPHROLEPISES IN ENGLAND. 



Among the gorgeously colored exhibits 

 of flowers and flowering plants at the 

 recent great temple show in London, 

 there intervened here and there as a 

 grateful rest for the eye, some groups 

 of ferns, which, to the careful student, 

 fully made up for their lack of glaring 

 tints by the delicacy and variety of their 

 make and cutting. There were several 

 new \'arietie8 which everyone admired, 

 and which in point of fact eclipsed all 

 others in their particular style of beauty 

 and extent of delicate division, even that 

 marvelous product of our antipodean fern 

 paridises, Todea superba, being cast into 

 the shade. 



I allude especially to the Nephrolepis 

 exaltata varieties, Wbitmani and tode- 

 aoides, the latter, as will be noted, being 

 christened after the todea in question. 

 Few, probably, who passed through the 

 tents amid the constant stream of non- 

 professional visitors, dreamt of connect- 

 ing these almost infinitely dissected 

 gems of vegetation, built up of broad 

 triangular masses of piled-up moss, as it 

 seemed, though more symmetrical than 

 any moss ever grown, with the long, nar- 

 row, once divided fronds of the straggly 

 nephrolepis perched high in air above 

 them, and in appearance about the most 

 unpromising looking progenitors one 

 could expect to see. Yet not only are 

 these twain really the progeny of this 

 simple type, but the vast difference has 

 been arrived at in but two or three gen- 

 erations of selection. The two forms 

 are similar, and opinions differ as to 

 which is the better. I incline to rank 

 todeaoides as the finest, as it certainly 

 develops a step farther in dissection and 

 extension, but the claims of Whitmani 

 are based upon an erecter habit and con- 

 sequently better display of its charms, 

 due to its shorter pinnulets and less 

 weight. 



A curious feature in the history of 

 these varieties and others mentioned later 

 is that the parent form, N. exaltata, has 

 been a common trade fern for a long 

 period, owing partly to its easy propaga- 

 tion through the runners or stolons which 

 it produces freely. Due, probably, to 

 this ease of production, independently of 

 spores, only one or two varieties, and 

 these not striking ones, made their ap- 

 pearance until a few years ago, when 

 N. exaltata Piersoni appeared in the 

 United States and created a sensation 

 as a decomposite variety of the species, 

 and started in a very marked fashion 

 the wonderful strain we treat of. 



Clearly, when fern growers grasped the 

 capacity of the species to vary thus 

 through its spores, for as spore sports we 

 must perforce regard the improvements, 

 they ceased to multiply merely by layer- 

 ing the stolons, and by utilizing the 

 spores were enabled in several quarters 

 to exhibit distinct improvements, culmin- 

 ating in the two cited, which really seem 



to defy rivalry. Although we must grant 

 our American cousins the honor of start- 

 ing the ball rolling, yet fully ten years 

 before they did so a bipinnate sport of 

 N. exaltata appeared here, but disap- 

 peared before the opportunity was seized 

 of perpetuating it. 



In close proximity to these charming 

 ferns there were in more than one group 

 examples of N. exaltata superba, r&ised 

 by H. B. May, which demonstrated the 

 capacity of this protean species, as it 

 has now proved itself to be, to assume 

 an entirely different varietal form, dif- 

 fering as much from the two plumose or 

 feathery forms described as can well be 

 imagined. Here it is true we have some 

 approximation to the erect, narrow frond 

 of the common progenitor, but, instead of 

 a thin blade cut into teeth, we have two 

 densely overlying masses of curly crest- 

 ing, an inch and more thick on each side 

 of a sturdy midrib, each of the ' tidrmal 

 side divisions or pinnae being dilated into 

 a ball like a tassel. The effect is beau- 

 tiful, and it contrasts in an extraordinary 

 manner with the others, says C. T. Druery 

 in his account of the exhibition. 



In hard-wooded plants that are, under 

 any circumstances, hard to root, consid- 

 erable care is necessary in selecting 

 wood that is neither too bard nor too 

 soft. In the former case, especially if 

 the wood is old, roots are not easily 

 emitted, while in the latter the cuttings 

 are liable to damp. A knowledge of the 

 proper degree of firmness cuttings should 

 possess comes only from practice, and it 

 differs materially in different plants. It 

 will be well, when beginning, to put in 

 cuttings of every degree of firmness and 

 observe closely for future guidance the 

 condition of the wood of those rooting 

 successfully. 



As a rule cuttings should be taken off 

 either when the plant is in a dormant 

 state or when it has made a new growth 

 of a shoot or branch with foliage so far 

 advanced as to be engaged in the forma- 

 tion of woody tissue. D. M. 



SELECTING CUTTINGS. 



Cuttings should always be taken from 

 healthy plants and from those parts of 

 plants which show no imperfections. If 

 the shoots or branches of a plant are not 

 in a thrifty condition, with a constant 

 supply of food given them by the roots 

 of the plant, they cAnnot reasonably be 

 expected to have sufficient staying power 



A DENVER PLANT. 



The accompanying illustration is from 

 a postal-card photograph of the estab- 

 lishment of C. J. Davis and, as he says, 

 "represents one of the small establish- 

 ments in Denver; glass area, 15,000 

 square feet." He grows a general line 

 of stock for retail trade, cut flowers, pot 

 plants and bedding stock. He has been 

 quite satisfactorily successful this sea- 

 son and has just opened a retail store at 

 735 Fifteenth street. 



NE^YOHK. 



TheMai^et. 



The ice strike and the garbage strike 

 are over, but the summer dullness and 

 large shipments of every kind of flower 

 continue. As one prominent wholesaler 

 puts it, "There are no prices; it is take 

 what you can get and be thankful." It 

 is the same old story every year. His- 

 tory repeats itself. But we forget, and 

 each succeeding year seems worse than 

 the one before. There's no real differ- 

 ence between them. These are the days 

 when the men at the helm go to Europe, 

 Cuba, Jamestown, the ball game and the 



Establishment of C J. Davis, Denver, Colo. 



to grow into thrifty plants when severed 

 from the parent. At the same time over- 

 vigorous shoots or branches, rendered so 

 by a superabundant supply of nourish- 

 ment, are not so likely to survive the 

 cutting off of that supply as others of 

 more moderate vigo;r. 



races, and the lady bookkeepers and the 

 lieutenants to the Catskills and other 

 high resorts where there is health and 

 no humidity. Everybody has gone, or is 

 going, and all are coming back ready for 

 the September opening of real business, 

 much more valuable in loyal sen'ice be- 



