CHAPTER X, 



FILMY OR TRANSPARENT FERNS. 



HE popular name of "Filmy" is a most appropriate appellation 

 when applied to a section of Ferns whose foliage, in some 

 cases small and slender, in other cases broad and massive, 

 although more or less finely divided, is always of a 

 transparent nature, sometimes so very much like a film as 

 to allow anyone to read even " diamond " (a very small type) through it. 

 These real gems of the Filices family, although nowadays seldom seen 

 in private collections, are, undoubtedly, deserving of much more attention 

 than they usually receive at the hands of the ordinary Fern-grower. They 

 combine such beauty and variation of form with extreme delicacy of texture, 

 that no other class of Ferns can compare with those contained in this 

 section ; it comprises only three genera, viz., HymenophyUum, Todea, and 

 Trichomanes, the fronds of each of which are wonderfully transparent. Why 

 these most interesting plants are not more extensively cultivated, it is 

 difficult to understand, as they are, of all Ferns, the best adapted for 

 ornamenting a room. They will grow luxuriantly in the same glass case 

 for years, without ever presenting the wretched appearance that other 

 Ferns do at times when subjected to similar treatment, as the plants 

 belonging to this section retain their fronds for an unusually long time. 

 We know of some Hymenophyllums, and also some Trichomanes, now 

 bearing fronds which have been on the plants for certainly upwards of ten 

 years. When tastefully arranged on a rock work made of sandstone, or of 

 other equally porous material, and intermixed with pieces of dead Tree 



