PURDY'S PERENNIAL PLANTS AND SHRUBS 25 
Aspldium aculeatum var. iobalum. Our handsome house Fern 
are grown in pots to become entirely dry at the roots, else the small leaflets (pinnjc) 
will turn yellow and soon die. Do not water too often, but when you do, thoroughly 
soak the pot in a bucket of water. Spraying in cold, cloudy weather turns fronds black. 
Hardy Ferns About the Veranda 
I' rom the time in earliest spring when the uncurling fronds greet us until late winter, 
there are few things that grow which afford so much genuine interest and satisfaction 
to the home-owner as our beautiful native Ferns. Plant them about the porch or 
veranda and beside foundations of a house, in fact, in almost any cool, shady nook. 
They thrive year after year. Their graceful fronds serve as a shield to the barren ground, 
hide the foundation, and connect the lawn and house in a most charming way. 
A Few Native Ferns of Merit 
When a wild I^'ern is moved into a garden, it takes fully a year for it to get to growing 
thriftily. I have a good stock of garden-grown Ferns. Prices include postage or cx- 
pressage. Ferns are best moved just as they are starting into growth, which is in I'cb- 
ruary or March, and at my gardens it is later than in the Bay region. 
ADIANTUM marginatum. Our native Maidenhair Fern. Very much like the green- 
house 1^'erns. ft dies down in midsummer. 15 cts. each, $1.25 per doz. 
A. pedatum, the Five-finger Fern. A most beautiful Fern, and very satisfactory 
as a pot-plant if the caution above is noted. 10 cts., 15 cts., and 25 cts. each; Si, ?i.25, 
and $2 [)er doz.; very heavy plants, 50 cts. each. 
ASPLENIUM Filix-fcemina is the Lady Fern, and 1 consider the two forms that t 
offer of this among the very best of our native Ferns. It is a large P'ern and the fronds 
may arise to 4 feet in height. It likes moisture and shade, and the fronds are of the 
most pleasing green and very fragrant. They die to the ground in the winter, but make 
an astonishingly rapid growth in the early spring. I Especially recommend planting 
this with other Ferns liberally in new beds, for they grow almost as well the first year 
as afterward, and keep the bed attractive while slower Ferns are establishing them- 
