TREE-FERNS, 



243 



ties where they may even be grown in the open 

 if the very hardiest kinds such as Dicksonia ant- 

 arctica and Ahophila excelsa are used. Though 

 the dryness of the climate is rather against 

 them, a few beautiful Fern-walks are to be 

 found upon the Riviera and many fine individ- 

 ual specimens. It is usual to grow them shel- 

 tered from the sun under Palms and evergreen 

 vegetation, but some of the best may be seen 

 in full sunlight without seeming to suffer (save, 

 perhaps, in length of frond) while they are far 

 less liable to injury by frost or the 

 rough dry winds which are their 

 worst enemy. Tree-ferns are found 

 in most parts of the tropics, Mexico, 

 Brazil, the West Indies, India, the 

 Cape, and Australia, but it is in 

 moist insular regions such as many 

 of the islands of the Southern Seas 

 that they reach the greatest profu- 

 sion. The isle of St. Helena is largely 

 covered with fern-growths and Ma- 

 deira is richly endowed, but it is in 

 Tasmania, New Zealand, and the 

 New Hebrides that they grow as 

 forests of stately stems, rising from 

 10 to 40 feet and bearing a crown 

 of drooping verdure — leaves 20 or 

 more feet in length and gracefully 

 pendant, sheltering a richly varied 

 carpet of shade-loving plants. Such 

 Fern-forests are found in sheltered 

 glades amongst the mountains, 

 where the atmosphere is constantly 

 moist and equable, stretching it may 

 be for miles under one vast dome of 

 verdure, the stems ranged in endless 

 vista, themselves daintily clothed 

 with mosses and climbing plants,the 

 whole with its dim religious light 

 and the arching outlines overhead 

 suggestive of some vast cathedral. 

 There is the shadow and the luxuriance of a 

 tropical forest without its stagnant oppression 

 — a constant ripple of light and shade — a qui- 

 ver of the drooping fronds, and a stir and move- 

 ment which dispel thegloom of denser growths. 

 These Fern-glades are the last vestige of vast 

 forests of Tree-ferns which the fossil remains 

 of the coal-measures prove to have once exist- 

 ed over a great part of the globe, including our 

 own islands and large tracts of the northern 



hemisphere in which they are now unknown 

 — Tree-ferns vaster and more luxuriant than 

 any to be found to-day. By far the largest pro - 

 portion of these fossils are Ferns, suggesting a 

 flora approaching that of NewZealand, where, 

 within a few acres, Hooker found thirty-six 

 distinct kinds growing. Tree-ferns do best in 

 a mixture of rough peat and light loam, for 

 though when given a suitable atmosphere they 

 seem largely indifferent as to soil, it is a mistake 

 to suppose that they are in any sense epiphytes 



— i.e., able to dispense with it. That they are 

 imported without roots is due to the fact that 

 in some of them a great amount of vitality is 

 centred in the trunk, which with gentle heat 

 and moisture ensures their growth after lying 

 rootless and dormant for many weeks. In the 

 same way old plants which have outgrown their 

 limits may be topped and rooted again, but this 

 must be done early in the yearwhile the plants 

 are at rest, and needs care in so planting that 



s 3 



