HYMENOPHYLL UM. 



301 



house in Upper Grrosvenor Street tlie late Mr. J. Cooper Forster grew plants 

 of H. demissum to perfection, tlie fronds retaining tlieir vitality for several 

 years ; Dr. John Winter, of 28, Montpellier Road, Brighton, grows with great 

 success a whole collection of Filmy Ferns in his rooms exclusively ; while 

 another illustrious member of the medical profession. Dr. J. Braxton Hicks, 

 has for many years, and, as he says, without much trouble, grown masses of 

 Trichomanes radicans to perfection in his London house, 24, George Street, 

 Hanover Square, in the midst of smoke and dust, and of fogs in winter. 



Among the many Filmies which succeed so well under his care and 

 special attention, Mr. J. F. Marchant, of 59, Berners Street, may proudly 

 call the attention of his visitors to the unique specimen of H. j^ulcherrimum 

 which forms the subject of our illustration, and which he has grown to 

 its present extraordinary size in a window- case, and exclusively in a cold 

 room. In each of the above-mentioned cases the plants were subjected to 

 the action of frost, and did not suffer from it. They require constant 

 moisture, but this should be produced more by means of condensation than 

 by mechanical waterings, to which these plants are decidedly averse, esj)ecially 

 the species with hairy or woolly foliage, wliich gTeatly suffer from being- 

 syringed overhead. In a letter to us on the subject, Mr. Marchant, who 

 is a very careful observer, says : "I have been trying a method which is 

 proving most satisfactory. I have had a large pit excavated under a spreading 

 tree. I then made a bed of cement to just cover the bottom, and hold 

 say lin. of water over the whole surface, all the Ferns are placed on bricks 

 or on inverted pots, and the whole is covered with three-frame lights. I 

 get a splendid condensation and much time is saved, as no overhead syringing 

 is requhed." 



Hymeno|)hyllums require but little hght and only a small depth of soil 

 to grow in, as their slender rhizomes, mostly of a wiry nature, have the 

 greatest objection to being buried under the loose material in which they 

 delight to grow. AA^hen the plants are cultivated in pots or in pans the 

 compost should be made of sandy peat, chopped sphagnum, and small pieces of 

 sandstone, in about equal parts, with an additional sprinkhng of coarse crock 

 dust, the whole being made so light and permeable as to be prevented under 

 any circumstances from becoming sour through the accumulated moisture 

 resulting from the repeated sprinklings and waterings necessary to produce 



