196 



CASSELL'S POPULAE GABDENING. 



to three mches in breadth; this is a native of 

 tropical America, from Mexico and the West Indies 

 southward to Peru. C. myriophylla has strong, 

 wiry, densely-tufted stipes, three to six inches long, 

 thickly clothed with pale woolly tomentum and 

 ovate-lanceolate fronds, four to six inches long hy 

 one and a half to two inches hroad, cut into an in- 

 finite number of small roundish bead-like segments. 

 The rachis is also clothed with tomentum, like the 

 stipe; the upper surface of the frond is green and 

 pilose, the 

 lower densely 

 matted and 

 scaly. It is a 

 native of tro- 

 pical America, 

 and has also 

 been lately 

 discovered in 

 the Neilgher- 

 ries. C.elegans 

 is a mere form 

 of this species, 

 with the ulti- 

 mated seg- 

 ments re- 

 versed pear- 

 shaped, in- 

 stead of 

 roundish. 



The tropi- 

 cal American 

 C. radiata has 

 strong, erect, 

 glossy, black- 

 ish, tufted 

 stipes, twelve 

 to eighteen 

 inches long, 

 with six to 

 nine pinnse, 



radiating from a common centre, similar to the 

 spokes of a wheel. 



Cultivation. — In a state of nature nearly all the 

 Cheilanthes inhabit dry rocky situations, and many 

 of them come from considerable elevations. If 

 these facts are borne in mind, and treatment founded 

 on these data followed, success in cultivation will 

 not prove difficult of attainment. All are espe- 

 cially impatient of too much water at the roots, and 

 syringing overhead is particularly injurious, both to 

 those with hairy fronds and the ones with the gold 

 or silver-coloured dust on the imder surfaces. AU 

 do well in a cool or temperate house, and should 

 not be grown in company with ferns which require 

 any great amount of atmospheric moisture. They 



can scarcely have too much light, and should in 

 all cases be placed as near to the glass as possible. 

 Only during very bright sunshine, when the young 

 fronds are being developed, is any shading necessary. 

 Constant ventilation is also a requisite. Good 

 fibrous peat, or a mixture of that and leaf -mould, 

 with sharp sand and a number of pieces of sandstone 

 or lime rubbish, in order to insure rapid drainage, is 

 all that is needed in the way of soil. They probably 

 all do much better when planted out amongst stones, 



in a porous 

 compost, close 

 to the glass. 

 A collection 

 in good health 

 under similar 

 conditions to 

 those above 

 sketched may 

 be seen 



planted out 

 on one of the 

 shelves of 

 the Tempe- 

 rate Fernery 

 in the Eoyal 

 GardenSjKew. 



The Glei- 

 chenias. — 



The genus 

 Gleichenia, 

 containing 

 about thirty 

 species, and 

 the nearly- 

 allied one, 

 Platyzoma, 

 with a single 

 representative 

 from tropical 

 and sub-tropical AustraKa, together constitute the 

 sub-order Gleicheniacece, one of the most interesting 

 and singular, as well as one of the most handsome, 

 groups of ferns. In Gleichenia the involucre is 

 absent, the sori are dorsal, of few (from two to ten) 

 capsules ; these open vertically, and are surrounded 

 by a broad, transverse, complete ring. The caudex, 

 in the majority of the species, is creeping, and the 

 stem dichotomous. The fronds are rigid, gener- 

 ally large, and dichotomously branched, frequently 

 bearing axillary buds. The distribution of the 

 genus is a rather wide one, as species are found 

 in both hemispheres, principally throughout the 

 tropical regions. A good many have not yet found 

 their way to cultivation; those mentioned in the 



ChEILANTHKS BLEOAIrS, 



