Ferns for Window Gardeners, 101 



rows. The fronds are supported by shining purplish- 

 dark stipes or stems. The pinnse are divided and sub- 

 divided, the lower pair always being larger than the 

 upper, giving a triangular shape to the frond, which is 

 of a dark green, and leathery in texture. It is a very 

 pretty and serviceable fern, making itself quite at home 

 in the shady parts of rockwork, and is easily grown in 

 pots. The variety acutum is a rare and rather tender 

 fern, but makes a beautiful pot plant, nearly triangular 

 in the form of the fronds, and much more robust and 

 graceful in outline. 



Allosorus crispus, the mountain parsley fern, or rock 

 brakes, is a well-known pretty little fern, of an elegant 

 parsley-looking habit of growth. It is a general 

 favorite. The fronds, which vary from two to six inches 

 in height, are of a delicate light green and a little tri- 

 angular in shape, supported on slender smooth green 

 stipes about the length of the frond. Its fronds appear 

 in spring and die down in autumn, and are of two kinds, 

 barren and seed-bearing, both much divided, the barren 

 fronds having wedge-shaped segments, and the fertile 

 fronds having oblong roundish segments, which, are 

 the highest of the two, causing a noticeable distinction 

 between them. 



It is an excellent pot fern, and very suitable for 

 rockwork. 



Adiantum capillus veneris, or the common maiden- 

 hair fern. This is the only species of the true maiden- 

 hair fern belonging to Great Britain, and is very rare. 

 It is a pretty graceful evergreen fern, with delicate, 

 rather drooping fronds from six inches to a foot in 



