CULTIVATION. 
403 ' 
pterin, and Adiantum, while comparatively only a few 
of the smooth-fronded species of the division Ereme- 
bnja produce plants from spores. This subject yet 
requires much experimental investigation before 
satisfactory reasons can be assigned for what is here 
stated. 
The majority of Ferns that do not increase by 
spores, often, however, readily do so by other means, 
such as by offsets, and viviparous buds, or bulbils 
produced on the upper surface, on the apex of the 
fronds, or in the axils of the segments, which, when 
placed under favourable circumstances, become plants. 
Ferns of csespitose vernation will occasionally produce 
buds or crowns laterally on the old caudex, which 
may be readily separated for propagation with a 
sharp knife ; when the vernation consists of a creep- 
ing rhizome, such may be cut in pieces of whatever 
length desirable, with a bud or growing point in each 
piece, and, as with the separated lateral crowns, 
should be placed in as small a pot as convenient, with 
soil suitable to their kind (selected according to the 
rule already given for establishing plants), and the 
whole subjected to an extra close atmosphere till 
thoroughly established. Up to the present time at- 
tempts to propagate Ferns by separated portions de- 
void of any previously joined bud have proved fruitless; 
although by some a solitary instance in Scolopcn- 
drium vulgare is considered sufficient evidence to the 
contrary, as portions of the base of its fronds, if 
separated, inserted in soil, and kept close and moist 
by the aid of a bell-glass, will readily strike ; so also 
with some of the abnormal forms of the same genus, if 
portions of the margins of their fronds are treated in 
2 D 2 
