76 The Fern Garden. 



plant in a cool house or a case, or in sheltered chinks 

 in the open rockery. If it should ever speak it would 

 be in such words as once startled the horticultural 

 community, " Give me air or I shall die." Soil to be 

 bricky and sandy ; fat peat is poison to it. 



A. fontanum — a gem for the case. 



A. ruta-muraria. — Stagnant moisture is ruin to it; 

 plant with the crown quite above the surface ; soil one 

 half broken brick or stone, the other half very sandy 

 peat. A lovely fern for planting in a chink in an old 

 wall in a shady sheltered spot. 



A. septentrionale, a difficult fern to grow. Try it in 

 a pot in a frame, in soil three parts sand and soft 

 stone, and guard it with fear and suspicion against 

 slugs, snails, and woodlice. 



Athyrium. — A. filix-fmmina is the Lady fern, and 

 well deserves the title. Please excuse description or 

 eulogy ; see it and believe. It will grow anywhere 

 under glass, or in the open air, if in a shady moist 

 position. I have a grand plant growing in the gravel 

 walk at the foot of the bastion, and more than I can 

 count in other places. A fine pot fern, growing well in 

 fat peat or in common loam, with sand, or in any soil 

 not chalky, with the help of a little cocoa-nut fibre to 

 mellow it. Be sure to drain the pot effectually and 

 give plenty of water. Oh, how it will smile upon you 

 if you treat it kindly ! 



The following varieties are fine — Coronans, Corym- 

 biferum, diffuso-multifidum, Elworthi, Fieldim, Frizelliee, 

 grandiceps, Grantiae, multifidum. 



Blechnum. — B. spicans, the hard fern, is a noble 



