THE ANNUAL MAIDENHAIR 
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Italy, Portugal, Sicily, Spain, and Switzerland. It is dis- 
tributed also over the Canary Islands, and is found in the 
Azores, and in Madeira ; also in Abyssinia, Algiers, Morocco, 
and at the Cape of Good Hope. It is an inhabitant of India, 
and the Islands of the Persian Gulf ; also of Mexico, Vera 
Cruz, and Victoria; of New Zealand and Tasmania. Like 
its namesake, the True Maidenhair, it is particularly abun- 
dant on the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the islands 
of the Atlantic Ocean. 
In the British Islands, however, its only known habitat is 
Jersey. It is therefore politically and not geographically a 
British Fern ; as it would be a natural and obvious arrange- 
ment to include the flora of the Channel Islands in the flora 
of France and not in that of the British Isles. In Jersey, 
where it was first discovered in the year 1852, it is tolerably 
abundant in one or two localities. It is often found grow- 
ing on moist sheltered hedge-banks facing southwards, in com- 
pany with Marchantia. The localities named as its Jersey 
habitats are St. Aubin, La Haule, and St. Lawrence. No 
varieties from the normal form of this Fern have been dis- 
covered in Jersey. 
Culture. — The best method of growing Gymnogramma 
leptophylla is under glass. Its culture is interesting on 
account of its rapid development from the spores. The soil 
must be light sandy loam, with leaf-mould for one-fourth of 
the compost. If the plant be kept in the Fern house, the 
spores will freely drop from the ripe frond, and germinate 
011 almost any damp porous substance they may chance to 
fall upon. If it be desired specially to raise the spores, a 
shallow seed-pan wide enough to admit within it a small 
bell glass, should be filled to three-fourths of its depth with 
drainage consisting of soft broken brick. Upon this should 
be placed a thin layer of sphagnum moss, and upon this 
again, a compost an inch or two deep consisting of light 
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