A Dictionary of Choice Ferns. 
157 
ASPL,KNl\jyi— continued. 
of its beautiful fronds, which are usually produced from a 
single crown. Although requiring warmer treatment than 
the type, it is more amenable to cultivation, and will be 
found to do well in a mixture of three parts sandy peat and 
one of loam and sand, with small pieces of limestone. When 
potted in such light material it requires a pretty liberal 
supply of water at the roots, but the drainage must be 
perfect. There are numerous forms of this. 
A. Colensoi. 
A useful and very elegant greenhouse species, native 
of New Z'Bal^ind, frequently found in the trade under 
the erroneous name of A. Hooherianum, which is properly 
applied to a plant of entirely different appearance. The 
species dedicated to Bishop Colenso is much in the way of 
the well-known A. hidhiferum, but of more compact habit 
and of much smaller dimensions in all its parts. When fully 
developed, the fronds are literally studded all over with 
young plants, by which means this species is usually 
propagated. 
A. dimorphum. 
This very handsome greenhouse Fern, native of Nor- 
folk Island, is undoubtedly one of the most elegant of the 
whole genus. It is also known in commerce under the names 
of A. hiforme and A. diversifolium. These significant syno- 
nyms are very applicable to a species whose barren and fertile 
fronds or portions of fronds are so entirely different that, 
unless seen growing upon the plant, it is difficult to recon- 
cile the two as belonging to the same subject, the one hav- 
ing the leafits narrow and thread-like, while in the other 
they are broad and not unlike the leaf of a celery-plant on a 
small scale. A. dimorphum is a remarkably variable species, 
having its fronds sometimes all fertile, sometimes all barren, 
while it is not at all unusual to find that the lower portion 
of a frond is barren while the upper part of it is fertile. 
It is a plant of exceptionally good constitution and very 
proliferous, producing on the upper surface of its fronds 
numerous small bulbils, by which means it is usually propa- 
gated. The sori, single on each pinnule, are situated on the 
innei* edge and very long, occupying generally three-fourths 
of the length of the pinnule. 
A. diversifolium. 
Synonymous with A. dimorphum. 
A. ebeneum. 
This charming greenhouse species, although given as 
from Ecuador and Cape Colony, is a small-growing Fern 
