28 
HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 
very readily watched^ would consist in inverting a porous 
flowerpot in a shallow dish or pan of water, large enough to 
take also the rim of an enclosing bell-glass, which should 
cover some surface of the water. A small cup or vase, set 
on the top of the inverted pot, with two or three worsted 
siphons, would keep its sides always damp ; the spores 
scattered over the sides of this moistened porous earthen- 
ware would find a proper nidus for their development, 
which might thus be watched with great facility. It is to 
be borne in mind, however, that the seedling plants are 
not so readily transplanted from an earthenware or stone 
surface, as they are when growing on the soil. 
The general features of culture^ — which it will be suffi- 
cient here to notice— are shade, shelter, and abundance of 
moisture. Neither of these are, however, essential to all 
the species, but when judiciously combined they produce 
the conditions under which all the species admit of being 
very successfully grown. 
In the garden, Ferns seem only appropriately introduced 
on what is called rockwork, which generally means a bank 
of earth irregularly terraced with misshapen blocks of 
stone, or by masses of some other hard porous material, 
the vitrified conglomerations formed in the burning of 
