Cultivation of Marsh Ferns. 



25 



dimensions, and produce abundance of fruitful fronds 

 in damp spongy peat. I never saw this and the Osmunda 

 grow so grandly as in a wet gully I struck upon once 

 when fern hunting in a wood near Oakshot in Surrey. 

 There the Osmund was my equal in stature, and the 

 fruiting fronds of the blechnum just reached my chin. 

 It was a very damp spongy spot, yet the ferns stood a 

 little above the water line. 



Charming plants to associate with the moisture-loving 

 ferns are the Equiseturns or Horsetails. Get Equisetum 

 sylvaticum if you can, and plant it in wet spongy peat 

 in a sheltered nook, and you will have a bit of vegeta- 

 tion that will make you proud of the land of which 

 it is a native, — that is, if you happen to be a true 

 Britisher, which the plant is, — if not, be glad now and 

 then that you came here, for if this is not in any 

 especial manner the land of ferns, it is at all events the 

 land of people who love them. 



ATHTEIITM FELIX PCEMIUA, VAB. EEIZELLLE. 



