ASPLENIUM. 



575 



extremity (Fig. 102) ; they are furnished with numerous pinnae (leaflets) of 

 a dark green colour, about Jin. long, and cut clown to the midrib into several 

 pinnules (leaflts) which are again pinnatifid (cut half-way down to their 

 midrib). The margin of each lobe is deeply notched with from three to 

 seven angular teeth. The plentiful sori (spore masses) are disposed from two 

 to four on each pinnule, but when mature they become confluent and then 

 cover nearly the whole of the under-surface of the frond. — Hooker, Species 

 Filicum, hi., p. 193. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gardening, i., p. 131. Lowe, 

 Ferns British and Exotic, v., t. 21b. Beddome, Ferns of • British India, 

 t. 146. 



To grow A. fontanwn to perfection and to preserve it evergreen it must 

 be treated as an ordinary greenhouse Fern, have glass protection all the year 

 round, and be shaded from the direct rays of the sun during the summer 

 months. Like most of the close, dwarf-growing species, it is readily 

 propagated by careful division of the plants during the spring months, when 

 the portions thus obtained should be potted or planted in a mixture of sandy 

 peat and broken bricks, or old mortar, or both ; and particular attention 

 should be paid to the drainage, which is best formed of freshly -broken bricks. 



This pretty species has produced several varieties, such as A. exiguum of 

 Beddome, found on the Neilgherries, which seems a less-divided form with 

 narrow fronds and black stalks ; and A. Bourgcei of Boissier, similar to 

 A. refractum of Moore, with oblong, blunt leaflets cut down about half-way 

 to the stalk into sharply-toothed lobes, most of them somewhat decurved ; 

 this latter is only known in cultivation, there being no record of its having 

 been found in a wild state. 



A. (Eliasplenium) formosum— Eu-as-ple'-m-um ; for-mo'-sum (beautiful), 

 Willdenow. 



This elegant, delicate-looking, small-growing, evergreen, stove species, 

 which, by the wiry, polished nature of its dark-coloured stalks, approaches the 

 Trichomanes group, is a native of Tropical America, from Cuba and Mexico 

 southward to Brazil and Peru ; it is also found in Ceylon, and we have it 

 on the authority of Beddome that it occurs in abundance in moist woods at 

 high elevations on the Neilgherries. Leibmann, on the other hand, remarks 

 that it is common in the temperate region on the east side of Mexico, growing 



