54 ■ NOTHOCHL^NA RUFA. 



JV. riifa has narrow fronds, from twelve to eighteen inches 

 long, which are pinnate, the pinnae being ovate, broadly ob- 

 long, pinnatifid, woolly. Stipes and rachis, pale brown. The 

 frond is attached to a creeping rhizoma. 



Sori terminal and marginal, forming a line of nearly single 

 spore cases around the edge of the pinnae. 



Ferns, as with other stove and greenhouse plants, require 

 the houses in which they are grown to be kept at a proper 

 temperature; indeed, many plants are lost from this essential 

 portion of their cultivation being not suiEciently attended to. 

 Every house should be provided with self-registering thermom- 

 eters, in order to shew how hot in the day-time, and to what 

 degree of cold in the night, the temperature of each house 

 is subjected to; and in speaking of this very important branch 

 of the cultivation of plants, I cannot too strongly recommend 

 the "Horticultural Thermometers" manufactured by Messrs. 

 Negretti and Zambra, of Hatton Garden, London. They are 

 reasonable in price, whilst the scale and stand are both metal, 

 consequently the temperature is always distinctly visible, as the 

 markings cannot be obliterated by the growth over them of 

 confervas, which is so troublesome an evil with the wooden 

 scales, in damp warm houses. 



I have not yet been fortunate enough to procure a plant of 

 iV. rufa. Since the above has been in type, a plant has been 

 given to the author by Mrs. Delves, of Tunbridge Wells. I 

 am, however, indebted to Sir William Hooker; Mr. Henderson, 

 of Wentworth; and to Mr. Norman, of Hull, for fructified 

 fronds. 



This species does not appear to be in any of the catalogues 

 of the English Nurserymen; it is in that of Messrs. Booth 

 and Son, of the Hamburgh Nursery. 



The illustration is from a frond obligingly presented to me 

 by Sir William Hooker, Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew. 



