DOODIA. 



199 



tilled with taller-growing kinds, as one often sees now in London houses 

 on north and north-east aspects, where they replace with advantage flowering 

 plants, which cannot be expected to prosper under such unfavourable 

 conditions. Although some Doodias grow more luxuriantly in a stove 

 temperature, and produce more massive foliage under such treatment, none of 

 them actually require great heat ; the cool and intermediate houses are the 

 places suitable to all of them. They are also very useful for forming an 

 undergrowth in cool houses devoted to either Orchids, Palms, or flowering 

 subjects ; the more so as they are a class of naturally clean plants, being 

 seldom infested with insects, and they bear fumigating without injury. As they 

 are of a very accommodating nature, Doodias, when planted under or grown 

 amongst other plants, bear with impunity the syrmgings that may be found 

 necessary to the welfare of the latter, or do equally well without, as the case 

 may be. They should be potted in a compost of three parts of peat and one 

 of silver sand. We have never seen them derive any benefit from loam being 

 added to their compost, whereas a little chopped sphagnum forms a valuable 

 addition to their soil, in which case I have always noticed that their fronds 

 attain a fuller development. The drainage, especially when they are grown 

 in pots, must not be overlooked, as they are very sensitive to the eflects of 

 stagnant water. None of them like exposure to the full rays of the sun. 



Doodias are invariably propagated by means of their spores, which are 

 produced in abundance, and germinate very freely, but they may also be 

 increased by the division of the crowns in early spring. 



Principal Species and Varieties. 



D. aspera — as'-per-a (rough), E. Broicn. 



This pretty, evergreen, greenhouse species, of erect habit, is a native of 

 Temperate Australia. It is easily distinguished fi-om all other known species 

 by the harsh and rigid nature of the dark -coloured stalks of its fronds. 

 The fronds, which are abundantly produced from a short-creeping rhizome 

 (prostrate stem), are oblong-spear-shaped, 6in. to 18in. long, 2in. to 4in. 

 broad, and pinnatifid (divided half-way to the midrib) ; the numerous long 

 and narrow leaflets have their margins strongly toothed and their base 

 dilated, the lower ones dwindling to mere auricles. They are of a particularly 



