CHAPTER V, 



SMALL-GROWING FERNS. 



1ST the Vegetable as well as in the Animal Kingdom nearly all 

 families have their pigmies as well as their gigantic repre- 

 sentatives, and Ferns are certainly no exception to the general 

 rule. If Tree Ferns and other gigantic- growing kinds which 

 form the subjects of the two preceding chapters are all of 

 exotic extraction, small -growing Ferns, on the contrary, are abundantly found 

 in Europe, and many of them may even be said to have their natural home 

 in the British Isles. Indeed, some genera are composed almost exclusively 

 of dwarf-growing species — such, for instance, are Actiniopteris, Cheilanthes, 

 Doodia, Nothochlcena, Pellcea, Woodsia, and others — all of which are of 

 peculiarly neat and compact habit. Small-growing Ferns, however, are not 

 confined to special genera, as there are also others more extensive, in which 

 vigorous -growing kinds are in close proximity to most interesting species of 

 very diminutive stature, such as we note in Davallia parvula, a little gem, 

 which in Borneo entirely covers the surfaces of trees with a uniform thick 

 carpet of its pretty and curious little fronds, produced from and disposed on 

 tiny little rhizomes of a particularly wiry nature. In this genus, which 

 comprises such robust-growing species as D. divaricata, D. solida, D. pallida 

 (Mooreana), and others, we also note D. alpina, a lovely species of Malayan 

 origin : this delights in extending its more fleshy rhizomes over the rocks, 

 which it covers with its barren and fertile fronds, seldom exceeding a few 

 inches in height, and of very distinct shape and size. The more extensive 

 genus Acrostichum, again, furnishes us with striking examples of dwarf-growing 



