60 
CHOICE BRITISH FERNS. 
grew in sncli a surprising fashion that the second year it 
filled the bell-glass completely, and had to be shifted; while 
its brethren of the same batch, in a close frame, were still 
in thumb-pots. 
For a shady window — i,e., one facing north or east — a most 
lovely ornament can thus be established, involving the least 
possible trouble. Even gas, under such conditions, does no 
harm. 
We have also found that an ordinary Wardian case, fitted with 
a watertight zinc bottom, holding about 2in. of water,, in which 
small thumb-pots were reversed to serve as supports for pots 
and pans containing choice varieties of Filmy Ferns, answered 
admirably, the water being drawn up by capillary attraction 
from the lower pots into the upper, and a congenial humidity 
being always maintained for months together, without anj’^ 
attention worthy the name. Trichomanes reniforme — a very 
rare New Zealand cousin of the Killarney Fern, but its very 
antipodes in appearance — thrives apace under this treatment. 
