CURIOUS FERNS. 



09 



pretty appearance ! Very seldom, however, does anyone meet with any of 

 those lovely Ferns with fronds terete or sub-terete, in cultivation : with 

 the exception, perhaps, of the North American S. pusilla, their existence 

 is only known from collectors' descriptions, or through dry specimens which 

 from time to time find their way into European herbaria from Australia, 

 New Zealand, Cape Colony, various parts of the West Indies, the Himalayas, 

 the Neilgherries, &c. ; for this genus — very distinct in habit, though relatively 

 small — is very widely diffused. 



While some genera are entirely composed of Ferns rendered peculiar 

 by their appearance, or by the conformation of their foliage, others, which 

 are specially known and admired for the elegance of the majority of their 

 members, also contain a few species provided with fronds of extraordinary 

 shape, contrasting singularly with those of the greater part of the genus. 

 Even the genus Adiantum, of which gracefulness is an acknowledged cha- 

 racter, belonging to most of its members, contains some very strangely - 

 foliaged species, such, for instance, as A, reniforme, a Madeira Fern, whose 

 kidney-shaped fronds give it the appearance of anything but a Maiden- 

 hair, and its connection with that popular genus is only made apparent 

 and indisputable by its fructification, which is essentially that belonging 

 to all other Maidenhair Ferns. The same remarks apply to the New 

 Zealand kidney-shaped Trichomanes reniforme, which, in relation to such 

 finely-divided species as T. trichoideum, occupies the same position as 

 do Adiantum reniforme and its variety asarifoliwn towards the finely-cut 

 A. cuneatum and A. c. graciUimum ; for its broad, transparent fronds have 

 very little in common with the unusually elegant and light character of 

 most Trichomanes, to which its relationship is only shown through its 

 similar fructification. Lindsaya reniformis occupies exactly the same position 

 in its genus as do the other above-named kidney-shaped Ferns. Pteris 

 (Doryopteris) palmata, with its barren fronds formed of a broad, undivided 

 centre, and five or more triangular lobes, and its fertile fronds cut down 

 to a broadly -winged centre into linear lobes, appears, on a cursory glance, to 

 have as little in common with other members of its own genus as the hastate 

 or triangular -shaped Asplenium Hemionitis {A. palmatum of commerce), or the 

 entire, broad-fronded A. Nidus, has with other finely-divided species contained 

 in the same genus. 



