FILMY FERNS. 



We now come to a class of ferns which, although native 

 to our country, grow in such moist and shady positions as 

 only deep and secluded glens or even rocky humid caves 

 by waterfalls can furnish, hence ordinary out of door 

 culture is quite out of the question, and practically nothing 

 but bell-glasses or Wardian cases are available for their 

 culture, since even the moist air of a fernery under glass 

 is not sufficiently evenly and constantly humid for them. 

 They are truly the children of shade and aerial humidity — 

 a touch of hot sun shrivels them irrecoverably, and with 

 these facts in mind we must treat them accordingly. 

 Where they grow we find them revelling in rocky rubble, 

 intermingled with vegetable debris and sand, their creeping 

 root-stocks forming a sort of mat thickly covered with 

 their translucent dark green fronds, the smaller species, 

 the hymenophyllums, resembling luxuriant moss clumps ; 

 the larger species, Tricho nnanes radicans or the British Fern, 

 anchoring itself upon the stones by roots penetrating 

 deeply among them, and emanating from a thicker creeping 

 root-stock of a black colour and hairy, in the fashion of 

 our friend the common Polybody, the beautifully twice-cut 

 erect transparent fronds rising singly in like fashion. 

 Moisure-lovers as all are, they do not affect bogs, but 

 always running water, which means a need for drainage. 

 As we have now mastered all their vital needs let us see 

 how we can provide for them artificially. 



A Wardian Case 



we will take into consideration, though a redware pan 

 closely fitted with a bell-glass answers as well, bar the 

 more restricted space. An ordinary Wardian case has a 

 zinc-lined receptacle for soil about four or five inches deep, 

 and this should have an outlet provided with a tap, since, 

 as we have seen, drainage is a necessity. To secure a free 



