FILMY FERNS, 



363 



gracefully arched and drooping and deeply cut I have found this to be one of the freest of 



into wavy segments of glossy apple-green. Filmy Ferns, running its slender thread-like 



Seen upon an old stump of Tree-Fern it pre- stems into pieces of Fern-stem or decaying 



sents a beautiful appearance with its shining wood. Syn. H. Plumieri. 



narrow fronds distinct in colour and delicate H. elasticum. — A beautiful kind from is- 



in form. West Indies and the mainland, from lands of the Indian Ocean, rare in collections 



Mexico to Brazil. {See engraving.) and perhaps only a geographical form of the 



H. axil/are. — -The prostrate stems or this better known H. hirtellum. Its fronds are oval, 



Fern are branching and very slender; the fronds thin and membranous, and thrice cut into deep 



linear-oblong, twice cut and drooping. A green segments. One of the woolly section of 



GROUP OF FILMTf FERNS. 



1. Triehomanes elegans. 3. Triehomanes parvulum (see page 337). S. Hymenophyllum asplenioid.es. 



2. Triehomanes triehoideum. 4. Triehomanes membranaeeum. 6. Triehomanes spieatum (Feea). 



pretty little plant, it has thepeculiarity of form- the group, it is very impatient of water over- 

 ingside branches through the extension of the head. 



barren fronds. West Indies and Venezuela. H.hirsutum. — -An elegant dwarf kind which 



H. ciliatum. — A plant of vast range yet creeps over sandstone rocks or the trunks ot 

 little varied in character, whether in America trees, covering them densely with matted roots 

 — where it occurs from Mexico to Chili — in and very narrow fronds. These are 2 to 6 inches 

 Asia, or in Africa. Though the African form long, drooping, deeply cut, rather limp in tex- 

 is sometimes called H. Boryanum it is quite in- | ture, and of pale transparent green with stalks 

 distinguishable from ciliatum. Its prostrate and fronds densely hairy. In the Fern-house 

 roots are creeping, with fronds of 3 to 6 inches, this kind grows well upon a block of wood, 

 broadly ovate, erect, twice or thrice cut, dark 1 with a damp atmosphere but no water over- 

 green in colour and clothed with tawny hairs. | head. Common in the West Indies and tropical 



