36 
Choice Ferns for Amateurs. 
perfection in an incredibly short time. They sow the 
spores of the different species, when ripe, on the 
surface of pots containing* plants of slower growth, 
such as Palms, which, as they do not often require 
fresh potting, give the spores a fair chance of 
germinating, and even of producing young plants. 
The latter are '^pricked off either in boxes or in 
pans ; thence, when they have made five or six fronds, 
they are taken and potted at once into 2|in. pots. In 
these pots, hundreds of thousands of Ferns are 
disposed of annually for the ornamentation of the 
dinner-table or of dwelling-rooms ; for such purposes 
more Ferns are grown in this country than any other 
kind of plants, and all of them are raised from spores. 
This mode of reproduction is also frequently resorted 
to for covering naturally damp, bare stone or brick 
walls, on which the spores of certain species 
germinate promptly, and the plants grow apace for 
a long time without any other nourishment than 
moisture, and what little vegetable mould is naturally 
produced by the decaying of their lower fronds. 
Division. 
All Ferns that naturally form several crowns 
(and under careful culture there are many, especi- 
ally among the British representatives, possessing 
that character) may be propagated by division of 
these adventitious crowns, which are produced, 
sometimes from buds situated at the base of the 
stalks, and at other times by a process of fission 
in the crowns themselves. This mode of propagation 
is particularly applicable, amongst our native kinds, 
to the numerous and beautiful deciduous forms of the 
Lady Fern, AspJeniuin (Athyrium) Filix-foemiva^ 
and to those of the common Hartstongue, Scolopen- 
druim inilgare (Fig. 27), in which the duplication of 
the crow^ns takes place much more readily than in 
other genera. It is undoubtedly the safest mode of in- 
creasing most of the crested, tasselled, cruciated, 
congested, or depauperated forms of these species, 
the faithful reproduction from spores of the endless, 
and in some cases confusing, varieties being, at 
