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GYMNOGRAMMA. 
S is a genus of about a hundred species, containing plants of varied habit, 
natives for the most part of tropical regions. Under the name of Gold 
Fern and Silver Fern some of the species are among the most favourite 
ferns of stove collections, owing their English name, and the beautiful 
appearance to which they are indebted for it, to the bright mealy powder 
with which the underside of the fronds is covered. G. chrysophylla, a West 
Indian species, is perhaps the best known of the golden-fronded group ; 
the fronds vary from less than a foot to two feet in length, being light- 
green above and of a golden hue on the under-surface ; G. sulphured, 
another West Indian species, is similar in hue, but is a much smaller plant. 
The best known of the Silver Ferns are G. calomelanos, which is also West 
Indian, and has large bipinnate fronds one to three feet long, dark-green above and white beneath ; 
and G. tartarea, from South America. There is a great amount of variation in the species, and 
some very handsome forms, either hybrids or “sports,” are in cultivation. G. chcerophylla is a 
pretty little plant which does well in a Wardian-case, and, once established in a fernery, will 
readily reproduce itself by spores : like an ordinary European species hereafter to be described 
at length, it is of annual duration — a somewhat exceptional occurrence among ferns. It is a 
small plant, from six to ten inches high, with very finely-divided bright-green triangular 
fronds, and is a native of Tropical South America. There are many other species of Gymuo- 
gramiua in cultivation, all of which are deservedly admired. 
GYMNOGRAMMA LEPTOPHYLLA, Desv. 
This pretty little fern is a plant of wide geographical range — found, indeed, in each of 
the great divisions of the world, although in America it is far from widely distributed, 
occurring at Vera Cruz, in Mexico, and in Ecuador. In Europe it is confined to southern 
and central regions, finding its north limit in Switzerland and France ; in the latter country 
Jersey should be included for purposes of botanical geography, for the including of Jersey 
plants in the British flora has always seemed to us very unscientific. It has, indeed, been 
recorded from a Scottish locality — by the road leading from Braemar to Ballater, in Aberdeen- 
shire — but some error must have occurred. In South Europe we find it in abundance in Spain, 
Portugal, and Italy — indeed, it is one of the characteristic species of the Mediterranean region, 
growing freely upon walls and rocks in rather moist situations ; Sicily, Corsica, and other 
Mediterranean islands produce it, and it extends to Turkey and Greece. It occurs in the 
north of Africa (Algiers, Barbary, Morocco, etc.), and likewise in the south (Cape of Good Hope), 
as also in Abyssinia and in the Atlantic islands — the Azores, Cape Verde Islands, and the Canaries 
— where it is abundant. In Asia it is recorded from Ghilan and Lazistan, from an island in 
the Persian Gulf, and from the Neilgherries, as well as from other Indian localities ; it also 
occurs in Australia (Victoria, Swan River, and Tasmania) and New Zealand. 
The fronds of Gymnogramma leptophylla are few in number, rising upright from the small 
tufted caudex, and from three to six inches high, the stipes being short ; in shape they are 
ovate or somewhat triangular, twice or three times pinnate. These fronds are fertile, the 
