A Dictionary of Choice Ferns. 
211 
carefully avoided. The spores, wliich are produced 
in abundance, germinate freely, and produce young 
plants in a remarkably sbort space of time. 
D. lunulata. 
This very handsome stove Fern, extensively known in 
gardems also under the nam-e of D. truncatula, is la native 
of Tropical America. It is entirely distinct from any 
other Fern in cultivation, its general aspect being that of 
a tree-like Adiantum, for its pinnules are shaped like 
those of several Maidenhair Ferns, and the bright metallic 
colour which adorns its fronds in their young stage helps 
to make the illusion more complete. The fronds are, how- 
ever, provided with thick, fleshy stalks, and their leafy 
portion, at first of a crimson-bronze tint, which gradu^ 
ally turns to a vivid, glossy green, are of a fleshy texture 
unknown among Adiantums, to- which the resemblance is 
thus much more apparent than real. This Fern might be 
extensively used for outdoor sub-tropical decorations from 
mid- June to mid-September, the experiments which have 
been tried in that respect in France and in Belgium having 
proved very satisfactory. It has a very disagreeable way 
of losing its pinnules ; but these drop off only when the 
plant has been allowed to get dry at the roots. 
D. truncatula. 
A synonym of Z). lunulata. 
DIPLAZIUM. See Asplenium. 
DISPHENIA. See Cyathea. 
DOODIA. 
Although not an extensive genus, Doodia is very 
rich, in decorative Ferns of small habit, as, with the 
exception of one species, all are of dwarf growth; 
they are, nevertheless, found very useful, especially 
for Fern-cases and for edgings of window-boxes 
filled with taller-growing kinds. Some Doodias 
grow more luxuriantly in a stove temperature, and 
produce more massive foliage under such treatment, 
but none of them actually require great heat; the 
cool and intermediate houses are the places suitable 
to all of them. They are also very useful for form- 
ing an undergrowth in cool houses devoted to either 
Palms, Orchids, or other flowering subjects; the more 
so as they are naturally clean plants, and they bear 
fumigation without injury. D. caudata is perhaps 
the most generally useful of all the species for this 
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