252 Cultivation of Exotic Ferns. 



Art. VI. On the Cultivation of Exotic Ferns. By J. Henderson, 

 Gardener to the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Milton, M.P., at Milton, 

 near Peterborough. 



As the cultivation of exotic ferns is becoming every year more 

 general in this country, a few observations on the means by 

 which they are at present procured from foreign countries may 

 be acceptable to some of your readers. The difficulty of im- 

 porting in boxes plants so delicate as are the v^^hole tribe of 

 ferns is well known : few of them will survive a passage of long 

 duration, and it is only with the more robust sorts that success 

 in that way is at all attainable. Mr. Ward's plan, of glazed 

 cases, affiards a better, indeed the only, chance of importing 

 plants of the more delicate sorts, and will, no doubt, be success- 

 ful when that plan can be had recourse to ; but, if plants cannot 

 be procured by either of these ways, they may be sometimes ob- 

 tained by means of seed. 



The propagation of ferns from sporules, or, as it is termed in 

 practice, from seed, which is now generally understood, would 

 greatly facilitate the introduction of exotic ferns, if seeds col- 

 lected in a proper state could be procured from foreign coun- 

 tries; and the object of this communication is to show that 

 the want of success in raising ferns from foreign-collected seed 

 is chiefly owing to the manner in which it has been gathered and 

 secured. 



The sporules, or seeds, of ferns are exceedingly minute, and 

 appear to the naked eye like very fine dust; while the capsules, 

 or thecae, which are about the size, and have much the appear- 

 ance, of the small seeds of some flowering plant, ere frequently 

 mistaken for the real seed. These capsules, if open, seldom con- 

 tain any seeds : a few may be found lodging among them if the 

 frond has been gathered before they have burst open ; but as, 

 in that operation, the capsule separates into two halves, and opens 

 with a jerk, the contents are at once dispersed, and generally 

 thrown a short distance ofll If, therefore, perfectly ripe cap- 

 sules are rubbed from a frond, and, on examining them with a 

 glass, they are found to be open, it may be concluded that vfery 

 little seed will be present: it is owing to inattention to these 

 matters that what is frequently received for fern seed proves to 

 be only dry empty capsules. 



In collecting fern seed, a frond should be selected that is not 

 very far advanced : if the capsules near the base have turned 

 brown, and those at the point are still green, the frond will con- 

 tain plenty of seed. This frond, or a part of it, should be 

 gathered, folded up, or rolled together, and put into a well-se- 

 cured paper bag, on which the name, if known, the soil and 

 situation in which it is found growing, and any other interest- 



