Fifty Select Greenhouse Ferns . 113 
Polypodium venosum in the way of Niphobolus lingua, 
a charming object when its ruddy fruits are ripe. This 
fern requires peculiar treatment, and if properly planted 
in the first instance will occasion no trouble whatever. 
In any case the roots must be extra well drained, for 
stagnant moisture is certain death to this plant. The 
soil which suits it best is a mixture of equal parts gritty 
leaf-mould, sandy peat, and potsherds broken to the 
size of peas. In such a mixture, not more than six 
inches in depth (four inches is sufficient), on a bottom 
of some material which will allow of ready escape for 
surplus moisture, the plant will do well, and prove itself 
an almost hardy fern. Obviously the best way to deal 
with a plant so constituted is to suspend it. When 
grown in a basket in a warm greenhouse it soon forms 
a fine specimen, the tawny rhizome creeps about wildly, 
and soon covers the basket with a beautiful complexity 
of cord-like windings, and from every part of it, except 
the young pushing shoots of the season, barren and 
fertile fronds are produced in plenty. To increase it 
is easy enough; cut off a portion of rhizome with 
fronds and roots attached ; pot it in the same sort of 
mixture as is recommended for specimen plants, and give 
it proper encouragement, and it will soon make a plant. 
Phlebodium aureum , P. sporodocarpum , two bold 
glaucous tinted ferns, with ruddy rhizomes that run 
upon the surface. They are both classed as stove ferns 
in the books, but they are as easy to grow in a green- 
house as any in this list ; at all events we can keep 
them in luxuriant condition in the cool house. Plenty 
of grit in the soil, and perfect drainage. 
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