British Ferns. 89 



looking fern, rather difficult to manage, but deserving 

 good generalship. If planted out give it a shaded, 

 sheltered spot, and at least half a barrow full of a 

 mixture consisting of loam two parts, peat one part, 

 sharp grit and small broken bricks one part. It is a 

 good pot plant if kept in a moist frame. 



Pteris. — P. aquilina, the brakes, or bracken, is one 

 of the best known of all. Plant it out in good loam or 

 peat where it will have room to run, as it is a persistent 

 traveller. Ten years ago I planted a piece not so big 

 as my hand on a bank in my out-door fernery, and now 

 it covers at least ten square yards of ground; at one point 

 in its course it has crossed the gravel walk and come 

 ilp on the other side. It makes a good pot plant, and 

 also a good wall plant if planted at the foot of a shady 

 wall and kept up by means of horizontally placed 

 lengths of tarred string or copper wire. These supports 

 should be placed about a foot apart ; they will not be 

 visible, and the effect will be a wall richly fringed as 

 with climbing ferns. To see the bracken as it should 

 be seen, we must go to the breezy moorland and skirt 

 the warm woodside; it is, perhaps, the most truly 

 rustic plant in Britain. 



Scolopendrium. — S. vulgare is the common harts- 

 tongue, one of the very first requisites of the hardy 

 fernery. This plant will not live in the full sunshine, 

 and it needs a good mellow loamy soil, or tough fibrous 

 peat, with plenty of moisture to attain the growth it 

 should, say a length of two to four feet. It is, how- 

 ever, an accommodating plant, as the fern hunter will 

 soon learn by observation, for it will be found on damp 



