Trichomanes. 
15 
Hook; and T. brevisetum , Brown. It was regarded as merely a variety of the Tunbridge 
Fern by the older English botanists, who knew only the small Yorkshire specimens. 
This species has been very popular in cultivation since the introduction of the Wardian 
case ; a moist atmosphere, with shade and warmth, seem to satisfy all its requirements ; and 
it will grow and flourish in a common earthen pot, if this is covered with a bell-glass and 
allowed to stand in water. It was formerly, however, extremely difficult to grow successfully ; 
and Mr. Ward tells us that Fischer, the superintendent of the Petersburg Botanic Gardens, 
“ when he saw the plant growing in one of my cases, took off" his hat, made a low bow to it, 
and said, ‘You have been my master all the days of my life.’” It will grow well in rough 
peat and sphagnum moss, or on a lump of sandstone, and is apparently capable of enduring 
a very low temperature. Mr. Backhouse says that, with him, “ though frozen into a mass of 
ice, which encrusted and buried it many inches deep for many weeks, it thawed out as fresh 
and fine as any one could desire.” The late Dr. Moore, of the Glasnevin Botanic Gardens, 
Dublin, was remarkably successful in growing the Killarney Fern, as well as the British species 
of Hymenophyllum ; the walls of a small greenhouse were literally carpeted with these plants, 
and their appearance was extremely beautiful. 
The name Trichomanes was not originally applied to the ferns with which it is now 
associated, but to an Asplenium, which is still known as A splenium Trichomanes , so that 
the name and its meaning may be more appropriately considered when we come to speak of 
the last-named plant. 
(a) PINNULE OF TRICHOMANES RADICANS, MAGNIFIED; ( b ) INVOLUCRE SHOWING 
VARYING LENGTH OF RECEPTACLE. 
