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European Ferns . 
and irregularly cut ; this has been known since the time of Ray, and is constant in cultivation. 
It has been stated that the spores produced on the normal portions of these monstrous fronds 
produce normal plants, while those from the multifid or branched portions produce plants 
similarly multifid or branched ; but we are not aware whether this has been thoroughly 
established. The variety polyschides is often very proliferous, the fronds producing little bulbils, 
by means of which the plant is increased. Some of the forms may be artificially propagated 
in this manner. If the plants be placed in a warm pit, near the glass, for some weeks, 
and then taken to a similar position in the coolest end of the propagating-house, they will 
soon produce small bulbils upon the margins 
of nearly every mature frond ; these may be 
removed and planted out in small pans, and 
will be ready for transplanting into store-pots in 
about three months. 
Gerard describes what seems to be a small 
barren form of the plant in the following words : 
“ There is a kind of feme, called Hcmiofutis 
sterilis, which is a very small and base herbe, 
not above a finger high, having fower or five 
small leaves of the same substance and colour, 
spotted on the backe part, and in taste like 
Hart’s toong ; but the leaves beare the shape 
of them of Totabona , or Good Henrie, which 
many of our apothecaries do abusively take 
for Mercurie : the rootes are very smooth, 
blacke, and threddie, bearing neither stalke, 
flower, nor seede : this plant my very good 
friende Master Nicholas Belson founde in a 
gravellie lane in the way leading to Oxey 
Parke, neere unto Watforde, fifteene miles from 
London : it groweth likewise on the stone walles 
of Hampton Court, in the garden of Master 
Huggens, keeper of the saide house or pallace.” 
There is no difficulty in growing the Hart’s- 
tongue ; it will succeed in almost any situation, 
and increases very readily by spores. We re- 
cently heard of a locality in which this fern did 
not exist in a wild state, and the owner of a 
garden introduced some examples of it. In a 
very short time the Hart’s-tongue had not only settled itself independently in various parts 
of the garden, but had passed beyond its boundaries, and established itself in a neighbouring 
lane. Mr. Moore tells us that the varieties may be increased by cuttings of the succulent 
bases of the fronds. “ The fleshy bases of the stipes, which are the parts made use of, remain 
alive long after the fronds have decayed ; these are cut asunder with a sharp knife, retaining a 
portion of the rind of the caudex, and planted like root-cuttings in a slight warmth, and 
under these conditions they soon organise buds from the cut edges, and so form young 
plants.” 
