Si 



•several distinct finds known as cristatum are all pretty 

 and worth growing. B. s. tviiievvium is a singular type not 

 uncommon in hilly districts, especially in Ireland ; in this 

 the two bottom divisions of the frond are considerably 

 lengthened, and in B. s. t. Hodgsoiuv they are so large as 

 to make the frond a trident. B. s. Fovstevi is a remarkable 

 leafy, crispy, dense variety, difficult to describe, but very 

 distinct, and the writer has found three forms which 

 approach it, one a dwarf, one very foliose, and one nearer 

 the normal, but well forked pinnae here and there, and the 

 pinnae set on so closely as to crowd each other and run 

 .together — confluent — at the frond tips. Mr. E. J. Lowe 

 records eighty-live varieties of this charming fern, and as it 



Does Well with Pot Culture, 

 a frame or a shelf or two in a cool greenhouse may well be 

 devoted to a collection. It is perfectly evergreen, retaining 

 .its barren fronds quite fresh well into the second season, 

 and until the new ones are perfected; the fertile ones 

 perish much earlier, and can be cut off as soon as shabby 

 without detriment. The chief thing to bear in mind is, we 

 repeat, the necessity of rain water or water free from lime, 

 and the next thing, that the plant must not go dry ; these 

 points attended to, and proper planting to start with, the 

 Blechnum will survive its owner. 



Chas. T. Druery. F.L.S. 



FERN STRUCTURE. 



x\lthough the structure of every plant is at once a 

 marvel and a mystery, and careful consideration of the 

 work, which is apparently spontaneously carried out from 

 the germination of the seed to the subsequent fruition 

 which completes the life cycle, must fill every thinking 

 mind with wonder; ferns, if studied in a like fashion, 

 present certain fundamental differences, which constitute 



