662 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
DAVALLIA BULLATA (blistered). Squirrel’s-foot Fern. 
Rhizome stout, clothed with hair-like scales. Stipes 
stout, erect, 3 to 4 inches long. Fronds 8 to 12 inches long, 4 to 8 inches 
across, triangular, four times pinnate. Lower pinne lance-shaped, with 
somewhat rhomboid segments. Sori half-cup-shaped. Native of 
Tropical Asia. Not evergreen. Stove. 
D. CANARIENSIS (Canary Islands). Rhizome creeping, densely scaly. 
Stipes erect, 4 to 6 inches long. Fronds 1 to 14 foot long, 9 to 12 inches 
across, triangular. Lower pinne lance-shaped-triangular, with more 
oval segments. Sori, each occupying an entire lobe of a pinnule. 
Evergreen. Native of Europe and the Canaries. Greenhouse. 
D. DissEcTA (dissected). Similar to D. bullata, but much larger, 
and evergreen. The rhizome is of climbing habit. The sori are minute, 
oblong. Introduced from Java, 1855. 
Davallias should be grown in fibrous peat and sand, 
which should be piled up above the rim of the pot. The 
rhizome should not be covered with soil, but simply pressed in, and, if 
necessary, slightly pegged down until its roots are established. Those 
of climbing habit should have the growing point of the rhizome placed 
against a length of Virgin Cork, the old trunk of a Tree Fern, or similar 
body, to which it will attach itself. They are also suitable for basket- 
culture. 
Principal Species. 
Cultivation. 
DICKSONIAS 
Natural Order Finices. Genus Dicksonia 
DicksoniA (named in honour of James Dickson, a cryptogamic botanist). 
A genus of about forty species of stove and greenhouse Ferns, chiefly 
natives of Tropical America and Polynesia. Many of the species are 
Tree Ferns, with tall stems and large, leathery, much-divided fronds. 
The sori are situated near the margin of the frond and at the extremity 
of a vein; the involucre is cup-shaped or two-valved. 
Dicksonia arborescens was the first species of this 
genus to be introduced to cultivation in this country, 
coming from St. Helena in 1786; but another species had long been 
known to fame, and appeared to furnish conclusive evidence of the truth 
of one of the most cherished of travellers’ tales. This was D. Barometz, 
a plant with creeping rhizome densely clad in silky hair-like scales 
similar to that of Davallia canariensis, and the story founded upon it 
was to the effect that, in the deserts of Scythia, there grows a plant 
History. 
