24 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 412. 



Three years ago a collection of species and varieties of 

 Gleichenia, at that time only a few inches high and 

 planted in four-inch pots, was obtained for this house. 

 These plants are now each from three to four feet in 

 diameter, their stem-like fronds interlacing and forming a 

 thick bush of elegant green, prettily crimped pinme. 



The treatment these plants have received is as follows: 

 They are potted in a mixture of peat, silver sand and 

 nodules of sandstone in shallow pots or pans. The soil is 

 pressed firmly about the roots, and any straggling rhizomes 

 pegged down close to the soil. Plenty of water is given' 

 at all times, and this is perhaps the chief essential in the 

 cultivation of Gleichenias. If a plant has lost fronds, 

 turned brown, or made stunted growth, it has proved to 

 be due to insufficient watering. I have been told by 

 travelers that Gleichenias generally grow in sunny, dry 

 situations in countries where they are wild, but 1 know 

 from experience that under cultivation they do not 

 like bright sunshine, and they revel in moisture at the 

 root. 



Gleichenias are remarkable in the structure of their 

 fronds, in which respect they resemble the Lygodiums, 

 several species of Davallia and one of Gymnogramme. 

 The true stem is a creeping rhizome from which spring 

 the fronds, which have wiry stalks, generally dichoto- 

 mously branched many times, and bearing numerous ele- 

 gant, deeply cut, pinnatifid branches or pinnse. 'these are 

 what are usually looked upon as the fronds proper, the 

 long wiry portion being popularly supposed to be stems. 

 The sori are capsular, in cups formed by the usually 

 reflexed edges of the ultimate divisions or teeth of the 

 pinnae ; they contain few spores, which are matured on 

 cultivated plants and are used for their propagation. Be- 

 ginners are apt to collect and sow only the spore-cases 

 after the spores have escaped, which they do at an early 

 stage. The pinnse should be collected when the capsules 

 are green and plump, and kept in paper in a dry place till 

 the capsules burst and release the spores. They should be 

 sown in pots of very sandy peat and covered with a pane 

 of glass. Although the wiry growths are really the stalks 

 of the fronds, they may be used for the purpose of multi- 

 plication, as they frequently bear axillary buds. A stock 

 of plants can be obtained by planting a specimen in a pre- 

 pared bed of sandy peat and pegging down the fronds, 

 especially fixing the apical fork close to or a little below 

 the surface of the soil. Many Ferns have proliferous or 

 bud-bearing fronds, the most familiar of all being the 

 Aspleniums of the bulbiferum type. 



Gleichenias may be grown into very large specimens. 

 I have seen them fully six feet in diameter and as leafy 

 and healthy as a well-grown Asparagus plumosus. 



There are about thirty species of Gleichenia scattered 

 widely over the tropics both of the Old and New World, 

 extending into Chili, Australia, the Cape, etc. Some of the 

 handsomest, especially of the truly tropical species, have 

 not yet been introduced into cultivation, although many 

 attempts have been made. The following are cultivated 

 at Kew and in other gardens in England : 



G. circinata. — Rhizomes covered with black-brown 

 scales ; stalks of fronds brown, clothed with gray wool ; 

 pinnae (fronds) six to eighteen inches long, dull olive- 

 green above, silvery below ; the segments linear, one to 

 three inches long, one-eighth of an inch wide ; the teeth 

 rounded, flat, or forming shallow cups in some of the 

 varieties, of which there are five at Kew, viz., Backhousiana 

 Mendelii, semivestita and Spelunca'. These are all natives 

 of Australia and New Zealand and have long been in 

 cultivation. 



G. dicarpa. — Rhizomes nearly glabrous ; stalks brown, 

 hairy only when young; pinna 1 bluish green, the seg- 

 ments very narrow and divided into numerous very small 

 rounded teeth, the margin of each of which is recurved and 

 forms a small purse-like cavity, which is partly closed 

 with tine rust-colored hairs. This character distinguishes 

 dicarpa from all the other species. The varieties of it 



grown here are alpina, glauca and longipinnata, all natives 

 of Australia and New Zealand. 



G. dichotoma. — The stalks of this species are thin, some- 

 what zigzag, hairy when young, smooth and shining 

 brown when old ; they are dichotomously branched, each 

 pair of pinnse being subtended by a pair of smaller in 

 the axil or fork, from which springs the continuing stalk. 

 The pinna? vary in length from six inches to a foot, and 

 in width from one to six inches ; they are not unlike the 

 fronds of a Nephrolepis. This species is usually unsatis- 

 factory under cultivation, but at Kew it grows well under 

 the conditions above described. It is quite distinct from 

 all other Ferns. It occurs in all tropical countries, and 

 there are numerous forms of it. 



G. flabellata. — Rhizomes as thick as goose-quills, olive 

 green, clothed with black hairs ; stalks erect, smooth, 

 dark brown, unbranched for some distance, bearing a 

 cluster of repeatedly forked pinnae about nine inches long, 

 flabellately arranged, more or less parallel and gracefully 

 arched ; the teeth are half an inch long, shining dark 

 green. There is a large specimen of this very striking 

 Fern at Kew. It is a native of Australia and New Zealand, 

 where it sometimes forms masses many feet through. 



G. rupestris. — Stalks of fronds thin, wiry, glaucous when 

 young, smooth ; pinna' as in G. circinata, but with thicker, 

 rounder teeth, and always quite flat ; they are glaucous 

 green above, silvery below. Var. gigantea has the seg- 

 ments nearly a quarter of an inch wide and is a noble 

 Fern ; var. glaucescens is more distinctly glaucous than the 

 type. Native of Australia. 



London. 



W. Watson. 



Plant Notes. 



Leucothoe CatesB/EI. — Certainly few people can realize 

 the winter beauty of this shrub or it would be more often 

 seen in northern gardens. The flower-buds are developed 

 in autumn in the axils of the persistent leaves of the year, 

 and are formed like elongated pointed cones, about half an 

 inch in length, with closely imbricated scales. As the 

 weather grows cold the scales turn deep red, the same color 

 suffusing in a slighter degree the ends of the zigzag stems 

 and the upper leaves, and their petioles, vigorous young 

 branches and their leaves being often as richly colored as the 

 flower-buds. The lower leaves for the most part retain 

 their brilliant lustrous green color, and the contrast between 

 the upper and lower parts of the plant only adds to its 

 beauty. Leucothoe Catesban is a shrub with recurving 

 stems from three to six feet in length, persistent, tapering 

 thick and leathery leaves, and short spike-like racemes of 

 nodding waxy bell-shaped flowers. It is a common under- 

 shrub in the region of the southern Alleghany Mountains, 

 where, from Virginia to Georgia, it inhabits the moist banks 

 of streams, usually growing in the shade of trees. It was 

 one of the earliest of the Appalachian plants cultivated in 

 Europe, and English gardeners soon learned its value. It 

 has always been propagated in English nurseries, but in 

 this country has remained comparatively rare in gardens. 

 It flourishes in damp situations and in peat soil, growing 

 equally well in the shade and in full sunlight and is beau- 

 tiful throughout the year. When it is desirable to unite the 

 margins of a plantation of evergreen trees or large shrubs 

 with the ground, or to plant the shaded banks of a brook 

 flowing through a rocky gorge, there is no better plant for 

 the purpose than this Alleghany shrub, which possesses a 

 constitution that enables it to bear uninjured the severe 

 climate of New England. All the North American Leuco- 

 thoes, of which half a dozen are distinguished by botanists, 

 are first-rate garden plants ; and they are all easy to culti- 

 vate, with the exception, perhaps, of the beautiful Leuco- 

 thoe Davisiae, which inhabits the high Sierra Nevada of 

 California and has not yet been satisfactorily tested in our 

 gardens, although it was introduced into England as long 

 ago as 1853 by the collector Lobb. Like many other Cali- 

 fornia plants, however, it is difficult to manage in the east, 

 and probably will never become a popular garden plant here. 



