FERN GROWING 33 



In the case of the plumose form of the Hart's-tongue known 

 as crispum, occasionally a number of plants, all sterile, are 

 found in close proximity ; the late Colonel Jones found twenty- 

 nine near Shirenewton, and Major Cowburn has found nine- 

 teen at Dennel Hill. Marvellous wild finds are usually 

 solitary examples. The Nephrodium paleaceum var. cristatum 

 found in the west of England was a single specimen, and 

 no second example has been discovered ; yet a somewhat 

 similar form has more recently, however, been found in 

 North Wales, the two differing in the one being yfa^f-crested 

 and the other bunch-ox^^X^^,. 



"An increase in the strength of a plumose form would 

 thicken the texture of the frond, and enable it to bear spores. 

 Experiments have been tried on flowering plants as well as 

 on Ferns, in the hope of procuring this strengthening result. 

 Taking Into consideration that a vast number of antheridia 

 may be requisite to fertilise a Fern, and a shower of pollen 

 to impregnate a flower, the single dahlia was selected as a 

 flowering example, and a capitate form of Aspidium angulare 

 as that of the Fern to be experimented upon. As it was 

 wished to use six times as much pollen of a white dahlia 

 as that of a pink one, six small brushes were filled with 

 the pollen of a white flower, and one from that which was 

 pink, the whole being collected on a larger brush and then 

 repeatedly applied to a white flower. The result in the 

 seedlings was eighty-seven per cent, of white flowers ; whilst 

 equal parts of white and pink pollen only gave forty-four 

 per cent, of white flowers. The second experiment with 

 Aspidium angulare, in order to increase size as well as 

 greater development, could only be done by using mixed 

 spores in certain proportions — i.e., six times the number of spores 

 from the largest crested varieties to one of a variety of larger 

 growth, if sown together, it was thought might be the means of 

 increasing the vigour of the plants, and thus produce a Fern 



