112 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



POLYPODIUM VULGARE AND ITS VARIETIES, WITH 

 A METHOD OF CULTIVATION. 



By the Rev. H. Kingsmill Moore, D.D., F.R.H.S. 



An enforced rest necessitating the spending of much time in the open 

 air turned my thoughts to the study of natural objects. Though I knew 

 nothing about our native ferns, the rich luxuriance with which they 

 grew about my home in the County Cork had always attracted me, 

 and I decided to make them my study. My plan was to search them 

 out in their native haunts, to note their differences of form, and to 

 cultivate them under conditions as like those of nature as possible. 

 Being debarred from books and having no neighbouring fern-lovers ro 

 consult, I had to begin from the beginning and set to work as it were 

 at first hand. This course had manifest disadvantages. Ferns differ 

 greatly at different periods of growth. If you have not realized that 

 many a fern which stands high in the wood or by the stream in summer 

 is little more than a circular series of brown coils in winter, it will 

 take you some time to trace the life-history of yom* discoveries, and 

 you will be disappointed again and again when something thought to 

 be different from what you have found before turns out to be only a 

 familiar form at a different period of life. On the other hand, there 

 are solid compensations. The 'knowledge gained, somewhat laboriously 

 perhaps, is apt to be thorough and to abide, while the demands made for 

 careful personal observation introduce to many aspects of the subject 

 which otherwise might easily be overlooked. 



Polypodium vulgare abounds in the County Cork. It confronted me 

 everywhere : sometimes a dwarf, sometimes a giant ; sometunes in full 

 sun, sometimes in deep shade ; sometimes on the ground, sometimes 

 on walls, sometimes on trees. I was able to note the varying conditions 

 under which the fern grew, but drew no deductions. 



At that time I was chiefly interested in acquiring good specimens, 

 and I remember rejoicing greatly in a strain of the variety hiherniciuii, 

 whose equal I have never since been able to procure. Later, however, 

 the opportunity came of again growing ferns, with the result that a 

 representative collection was quickly got together and placed in carefully 

 prepared quarters, with due attention to the requirements of each species 

 as usually described. 



The Polypodiums were again in favour, and all the available species 

 and varieties, together with some personal " finds," were included. 

 Most of them seemed to enjoy the treatment they received. This was 

 especially the case with the different forms of P. vulgare camhricmn. 

 This type multiphed in high situations, exposed to all winds, and in 



