FERTILISATION AND PROPAGATION. 



all its energies being concentrated in the development of its own growth. 

 Like the divided crowns, the little plants produced from these buds are 

 provided with a bunch of roots all ready to support the new subject as soon 

 as it is severed from the mother-plant. These young plants are then best 

 pricked out round the edges of pots or small pans filled with a compost 

 of an open and somewhat sandy nature. For some reason or other, the 

 edges of the pots and pans appear to be the most suitable places for young 

 plants of all sorts, but particularly for young Ferns produced either from 

 buds or from spores ; this is possibly due to the permanent sweetness of 

 the soil, which stimulates root action, through the circulation of a certain 

 amount of air which does not easily penetrate any further into the compost. 



Ferns provided with creeping rhizomes may generally be propagated freely 

 by the " sectioning " of these organs, most of which bear cutting up into pieces, 

 particularly while the plants are still at rest. It is thus that the Oak Fern 

 (Polypodium Dryopteris), the Beech Fern (P. Phegopteris), the common Poly- 

 pody (P. vulgar e), and our native Maidenhair (Adiantum Capillus- Veneris), are 

 usually propagated, as every piece of creeping rootstock bearing a couple of 

 fronds and a few roots, or even rudiments of roots, usually produces a plant, 

 when firmly pegged to the ground, with the rootlets well covered. Exotic 

 Polypodiums, as also the majority of Davallias, numerous Acrostichums, &c, 

 are easily increased by the layering of the points of their rhizomes ; or if these 

 are cut into various lengths, they rapidly produce lateral growths, which form 

 independent little plants in a very short time. The best material in which to 

 lay these pieces of rhizomes is one of very porous nature, in which a sufficient 

 quantity of permanent moisture can easily be maintained without the compost 

 ever becoming sour. Chopped sphagnum, rough fibrous peat, and coarse silver 

 sand, in equal proportions, form the mixture which gives the most satisfactory 

 results. In this the sectioned rhizomes should be laid with but a very 

 superficial covering of the same material, through which the young growths 

 will make their way in a remarkably short space of time, especially if the 

 whole is subjected to the influence of a warm, moist atmosphere, such as that 

 of an ordinary propagating- case, or of a melon- or forcing-pit. 



In the case of viviparous or proliferous growths being produced on the 

 foliage of either British or exotic Ferns, the mode of propagation is obvious ; 

 for, even when the plants possessing these characters can be reproduced from 



