3*4 



FLORA AND SYLVA, 



America, extending south in hardier forms as 

 far as Patagonia. 



H. hirtellum. — A free-growing and hand- 

 some Fern with erect fronds three times deeply 

 cut, 3 to 6 inches long and 3 inches broad, 

 light green in colour and clothed with reddish 

 or pale-coloured hairs which cover even the 

 stalks as with short dense wool. Common in 

 Jamaica and thence through other islands to 

 Mexico. 



H. interruptum. — A rare kind with fronds 

 varying from a few inches to 3 feet in length 

 and 2 to 5 inches wide, their general outline 

 being narrowly spear-shaped. The upper part 

 of the frond is more deeply cut than the lower, 

 and all parts thickly clothed with soft yellow- 

 ish hairs. H. Sprucei is very like a small form 

 of this, but with fronds less hairy and much 

 thinner in texture. Mountain forests of the 

 Andes from Mexico to Peru, clothing tree- 

 stems with softly drooping verdure. 



H. lineare. — A handsome and delicate plant 

 with a very wide range through the West 

 Indies and South American mountains up to 

 a height of 12,000 feet ; it also appears upon 

 the other side of the world in the island of 

 Mauritius. Its thread-like hairy roots creep 

 with limply drooping fronds of 3 to 8 inches, 

 cut to the centre and again divided into narrow 

 segments, their edges andsurface thickly hairy. 

 In its native country the roots cover rocks and 

 trees with densely crowded fronds of great 

 beauty. Syn. H. elegans. 



H. sericeum. — A lovely and distinct kind 

 with slender woolly roots and narrow drooping 

 fronds of 6 inches to 2 feet long and only once 

 cut. The leaflets are simply notched or deeply 

 cut, and covered with silky down of silvery 

 white while young, contrasted prettily with 

 the long brownish hairs upon the spore-masses 

 of older and mature fronds. It should be allowed 

 to ramble over a porous rock, its roots clothing 

 great masses of shady rock in tropical Ame- 

 rica and the West Indies. Like all the hairy 

 kinds, this is most averse to having its fronds 

 wetted. 



Todea Wilkesiana. — This is a free-growing 

 plant, beautiful and very rare, forming a slen- 

 der stem that with age reaches a height of 

 several feet and the thickness of a stout stick. 

 The crown is composed of a dozen fronds of 

 2 feet long and more than a foot wide, thin 



and transparent in texture and deep green 

 marked with small brown dots. It is a minia- 

 ture Tree-Fern, growing in the moist moun- 

 tain forests and charming in its grace and 

 beauty. Fiji and islands of the New Hebrides. 

 It needs a warm place in the house, planted in 

 peat and partly decayed sphagnum. 



Trichomanes alatum. — In this 

 Bristle Ferns, we have one of the finest of 

 West Indian Filmy Ferns, very 

 variable in size of frond and in their hairiness. 

 Its root-stock is short and scarcely creeping, 

 with fronds from 3 inches to nearly a foot long 

 of remarkable transparency and pale green co- 

 lour. They are broadly lanceolate, tapering to 

 a point, deeply cut, the leaflets toothed and 

 slightly arched. Thrives best upon a Fern stem, 

 and is richly beautiful when its delicate tracery 

 is hung with crystals of condensed moisture. 

 Syn. T. attenuatum. 



T. auriculatum. — -A widely-spread species 

 with creeping roots of such vigour as to cover 

 wide rock surfaces and climb the loftiest trees. 



TRICHOMANES AURICULATUM ON A FERN STEM. 



Its fronds are 6 to 1 2 inches long on very short 

 stalks, and are twice cut into broad, blunt seg- 

 ments of leathery texture when barren, but 

 more finely cut when fertile ; colour deep sea- 

 green and exquisitely transparent. One of the 

 finest Filmy Ferns that can be grown. Moun- 

 tain forests throughout the East Indies, North- 

 ern Hindostan, and parts of South America. 



T. Bancroftii. — A dwarf Fern with small 

 oval fronds, deeply cut into blunt segments 

 which overlap, and are finely waved and crisped 



