364 
FERNS : BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 
amateur collections. Tliis lias also been tlie case at 
Ivew for tlie last twenty years, especially as regards 
Tropical Tree Ferns, many fine plants succumbing to 
the make-shifts that of necessity had to be resorted 
to after they had attained a certain height ; but by 
beginning with young plants, they may be grown for a 
number of years in houses of the usual average height 
of ten to twelve feet, as also the large fronded tree- 
like Lastrea villosa, Litobrochia jwdophylla, Asplenium 
striatum, Hemidictyon marginatum, and many others 
of like habit. The latter, at Kew, in a 20-inch pot, 
produced beautiful fronds, seven feet in height, and 
which might, with encouragement, soon be made to 
produce them equal to those of native growth — fourteen 
feet. But in order to get rid of the inconvenient and 
unsightly look of large pots and tubs, it is best to 
adopt for these plants the system of natural cultivation 
explained further on. 
In the “ Species Filicum ” about one hundred and 
twenty species of Tree Ferns are described ; but, 
according to Mr. Moore’s “ Index Filicum,” the 
number amounts to nearly two hundred. They are 
widely distributed, chiefly within the tropics. They 
love shade and solitude, and are generally found at 
■elevations of from three thousand to five thousand feet 
in the humid regions. In the southern hemisphere 
they, however, extend much beyond the tropics, their 
southern limits being New Zealand, Norfolk Island, 
New South Wales, and Tasmania, where they grow at 
a lower elevation than within the tropics. On Mount 
Wellington, in the latter island, Dicksonia Antarctica 
is found in the greatest abundance, at an elevation 
■of from one thousand five hundred to two thousand 
