THE NATURAL CONDITIONS OF PLANTS. 43 
respective wants; and, before I proceed in my 
narrative, I may as well describe how this is to 
be effected. 
j House in which all the British ferns may he 
grown 
64 Where the tall foxglove peeps into the brook. 
And royal ferns adorn each watery nook.” 
In order to grow all our ferns under one roof, 
it would, of course, be necessary to fulfil their 
varying conditions of growth, and this might be 
easily effected by building a model of some an- 
tique ruin, or by imitating some mountainous 
ravine, or other bit of natural scenery with water 
trickling down from the elevated portion of the 
rock, and flowing out of the house in a continuous 
stream at the bottom. In such a house, without 
any artificial heat, our ferns would attain a luxu- 
riant growth, unimaginable by those who know 
them only under ordinary circumstances. Each 
fern could be supplied with a proper base of earth 
or rock, and each could have the amount of light 
most suited to its fullest development. The 
Trichomanes might there revel on its Turk rock, 
and gladden the eyes of the beholder with its 
lovely fronds spangled with iridescent rain-drops : 
at the base of the rock and extending to the mar- 
gins of the central brook, the two species of Hy~ 
meno'phyllum, with Blecknum, boreale, Lastrcea 
