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introduced with the soil, but these are not assertive under 

 shady Fern conditions, and are easily removed. Mosses of 

 various species sometimes appear, but not in our experience 

 to any pernicious extent, but where impure water is used, 

 or rather over used, Confervae will clothe the sodden soil 

 with such a dense mat of slender fibres as to seriously 

 handicap the plant concerned, and this should be picked 

 off persistently to enable the soil to be aerated, and water 

 judiciously withheld to check it further. 



Although scarcely to be classed as a Fernery Weed, 

 though really a weed among my Ferns, I may chronicle 

 here a curious sport, showing that even the weeds have 

 their vagaries. The wild violets in the open is in my 

 garden somewhat assertive, and recently while stooping 

 down to examine a clump of dwarf congested Athyria, my 

 attention was attracted to some curiously deeply frilled 

 and fringed foliage which I took at first for an extra pretty 

 Hartstongue. To my surprise, however, it turned out to 

 be a violet and not a fern at all, of which most of the leaves 

 were of this ornate character. I managed to get out a 

 specimen to pot up, and hope to obtain a constant plant. 

 Some thirty years ago, curiously enough, when Fern 

 hunting in Devon, I found a precisely similar form, which 

 I sent at once to the late Mr. G. B. Wollaston, whose 

 garden was a museum of such curios of vegetation, in 

 addition to his renowned Fern collection. Subsequently, 

 however, I learnt that he has lost it. I hope I shall be 

 more successful. 



Chas. T. Druery, V.M.H., F.L.S. 



FERN FRINGES. 



The frond of a Fern is undoubtedly one of the most 

 wonderful developments in the vegetable world. There is 

 little doubt that if we could trace it back to its origin, we 



