FILMY 



even those most indifferent toplants. Its fronds 

 vary in length and are narrowly spear-shaped 

 and deeply cut into oblong-blunted segments, 

 prettily waved at the edges, very transparent, 

 and bright green in colour. Brazil. 



T. sinuosum. — A beautiful kind, growing 

 best upon a Fern-stem from which its delicate 

 fronds drop most gracefully. The rhizomes 

 creep forward in waves, rambling for long dis- 

 tances with a profusion of deep-cut fronds, 4 to 

 9 inches long, of lively transparent green. West 

 Indies and Peru. Syn. T. incisum. 



T. spicatum. — This kind is so distinct as 

 often to have been classed apart under the 

 name Feea, but in general appearance it is the 

 same as others of this group and thrives under 

 the same treatment. The fronds rise from a 

 tufted rootstock and are of two sorts, the sterile 

 ones from 3 to 6 inches long, broadly lance- 

 shaped, and cut nearly to the midrib into 

 notched and spreading segments of dark green; 

 the fertile fronds are longer but narrow, spike- 

 like, and erect, bearing two rows of hanging 

 bell-shaped seed-masses without connecting 

 tissues. It is a beautiful and interesting plant 

 but not easy to grow, doing best upon wood in a 

 warm house, with a very moist but not a stag- 

 nant atmosphere. West Indies and thewarmer 

 parts of South America. Syn. Feea spicata. (See 

 engraving, p. 363.) 



T. tenerum. — This delicate little species 

 may be kept in a cool corner of the stove. Its 

 freely creeping roots are slender and covered 

 with wool, and its fronds lance-shaped and cut 

 into segments which are again twice divided 

 into narrow drooping threads of bright green, 

 and very transparent. West Indies and tropical 

 America. Syn. T. angustatum. 



T. trichoideum. — This exquisite plant is 

 plentiful in the West Indies and parts of South 

 America, andis often treated as a stove species. 

 I have, however, received it from the high 

 mountains of New Granada, where it grows 

 tall and stately, and this form of it does well 

 in the greenhouse. Its fronds, produced upon 

 creeping roots, are cut into delicate segments 

 scarcely thicker than hairs, vivid green in co- 

 lour, and borne on wiry, naked stalks. Cover- 

 ing tree trunks in its native haunts, its festoons 

 are the most graceful and fairy-like that can 

 be well imagined. (See engraving, p. 363.) 



G. 



FERNS, 367 



Ferns in the Fiji Islands. — Ferns abound 

 everywhere, from the sea level to the highest 

 mountain tops, in the hottest and coldest parts, 

 in sunshine and shade, on the poorestand rich- 

 est soils, and in the driest and wettest parts. 

 They are of all sizes, from the tiny Hymeno- 

 phyllum, scarcely a quarter of an inch, to the 

 gigantic Alsophila, a tree Fern, having a trunk 

 50 feet or more in height, surmounted by a 

 crown of beautiful feathery fronds. The num- 

 ber of distinct kinds and varieties of Ferns and 



1 allied plants native to Fiji amounts, asfar as they 

 are known, to nearly 300 species. Some of these 

 Ferns are magnificent. The Dicksonia mo/uc- 

 cana has fronds of a triangular shape, measuring 

 12 feet in length and 10 feet in breadth at the 

 base. One of them would cover an area of 60 

 superficial feet. This gigantic leaf is supported 

 by a stipe or stalk 6 feet in length and 3 inches 



I in circumference. As a contrast to this may 

 be mentioned the tiny fronds of the Filmy 

 Ferns, Hymenophyllums, and some of the 

 Trichomanes, scarcely one-eighth of an inch 

 high. The delicate fronds of a new species of 

 the last-named genus attain a height of 2^ feet. 

 Most beautiful they look when seen with the 

 rain-drops hanging like beads of crystal from 



j the points of their finely-divided fronds. Not 

 less pretty in this respect are Hymenophyllum 

 javanicum and di/atatum, generally found on 

 the sides of streams, shaded from the sun by 

 the overhanging banks and lofty trees. In the 

 dry parts of Fiji one of the silver-leaved Ferns 

 ( Gheilanthes farinosd) may occasionally be found 

 growing in the crevices of the rocks, while 

 festoons of Lygodium reticulatum and tassels of 

 Lycopodium to 5 feet in length hang from al- 

 most every tree, and the surface of the ground 

 is clad with one dense mass of beautiful Sela- 

 ginellas, some of which attain a height of 5 feet. 



J. HoRNE. 



A Fine Romneya. — Mrs. Dykes,writingfrom 

 the Red House, Keswick, shows what this 

 beautiful Tree Poppy can do in the open air 

 even as far north as Westmoreland. She says : 

 " I have grown Romneya Coulteriiox many years 

 and it has made large bushes. This year it has 

 spread into a mass 9 feet high and 27 feet 

 round, and it had 260 buds upon it at the be- 

 ginning of the summer. All these have made 

 large fully developed flowers, and as late as the 

 last week in October I picked two fine blooms. 



