76 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



Guinea Coast and Angola, Western Africa, and, though stated to have been 

 brought to Europe as far back as 1822, it was, according to Lowe, not 

 introduced into the Royal Gardens, Kew, until 1848. Though less known 

 than P. alcicome in collections, yet it is a very curious and handsome Fern. 

 The barren fronds, stalkless, rounded, convex, and downy when young, have 

 their edge more or less cleft into spreading lobes. The fertile fronds, which 

 are 2ft. to 3ft. long and clustered, are of a pendent habit and twice 

 divided ; their disk and first division are broader than in most other kinds, 

 the patch of fructification surrounding the sinus (depression) between the 

 two horn-like projections, and passing into the fork so as to be shaped like 



the letter V (Fig. 27). The 

 under- surface of the fertile 

 fronds is covered with a thin, 

 white, cottony down. — Hooker, 

 Species Filicum, v., p. 283 ; 

 Garden Ferns, t. 9. Nicholson, 

 Dictionary of Gardening, hi., 

 p. 157. Lowe, Ferns British 

 and Exotic, vii., t. 62. 



P. ae. angolense — an-go-len'-se 

 (native of Angola), Welwitsch. 

 This form differs from the pre- 

 ceding species principally in having 

 a broadly wedge-shaped fertile frond, 

 9in. broad at the top, without either 

 forks or horns, and with the fructi- 

 fication disposed in a patch nearly 

 as broad as the lamina (limb) of the frond. — Hooker, Synopsis Filicum, 

 p. 425. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, iii., p. 157. 



Fig. 28, Platycerium alcicome 



(much reduced). 



P. alcicome — al-cic-orn'-e (Elk's-horn), Desvaux. 



Although the commonest species of the genus, this is an extremely 

 interesting Fern, found growing on branches of trees in Australia, Java, the 

 East Indies, Madagascar, and Peru. It is of easy culture, thriving equally 



