GRASSES AND FERNS. 
97 
t Lomaria, with their dark green fronds, and the young . 
I fronds all beautifully rose-red; the coral and star 
ferns, Gleichenia, with the feathery graceful foliage; 
the harsh rasp ferns, Doodia, whose dark green foUage 
is their redemption; the bracken ferns, Pteris, with 
their fronds pale green and refreshing; the creeping 
ferns. Polypodium, often festooning the stems of the 
tree-ferns and sometimes trailing on the limbs of the 
trees; and the king fern, Todea barbara. This latter 
species often attains great size. Many individual 
crowns spring from the one butt or stem, which as- 
sumes with age a many-headed broad form. And then, 
as if to form a veil hiding all harshness and roughness 
of the fern trunks, we see the delicate moss-like ferns, 
Hymenophyllum and Trichomanes, ferns which love 
and never leave the darkness and the cool moist air. 
And, lastly, there is the maiden-hair fern, 
Adiantum .lEthiopicum. Its daintiness is unsur- 
passable, growing among the rocks or fringing the 
creek banks with its long delicate fronds, hanging 
weeping into the very water, as if seeking a sip of 
nature’s nectar, it is one of the most beautiful of all 
ferns. Adiantum formosum, the black-stem fern of 
the cool forests and jungles of East Gippsland, is a 
beautiful, robust species of maiden-hair fern, with 
fronds often three feet across, on a stem two or three 
feet in height. 
The common tree-fern, Dicksonia Antarctica, is 
one that follows the creek gullies and slopes. The hill 
tree-fern, Alsophilia Australis, is more hardy, and 
more suitable for garden culture. It is a success in 
good garden soils, especially where clay is absent. 
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