of rhizomes in a resting condition, made up with moss 
anti starting into growth with watering. The species 
illustrated has a harder glossier leaf, triangular, tri- 
pinnate, about a foot long at most, from a creeping 
rootstock, and make a very attractive little plant. 
Native in Polynesia and Australia. 
Asplenium auritum (Plate 3, figure 17 and plate 4, figure 
3). Splcenwort. 
A little, bipinnate species, with slender divisions, the 
leaves growing about a foot at most. Not a recognized 
house fern, but included here to illustrate the genus. 
A more common, cultivated asplenium, the bird’s-nest 
fern, A. nidus, was not available in small size. Native 
in American tropics. 
Nephrolepis cordi folio (Plate 3, figure 19 and plate 4, 
figure 5). Tuber fern. 
A good house fern, though not so well known as the 
following. The leaves are narrow, usually with blunt 
pinnae, dull, pale green, erect and spreading. One form 
has scaly tubers of the size of walnuts. The leaves are 
particularly resistant to drying, retaining their form 
under conditions which would cause many fern leaves 
to wilt and die. Native in tropics. 
A Tephrolepis exaltatci. Sword fern. 
No description of house ferns would be complete 
without the inclusion of varieties of the sword fern or 
rather, its variety, bostoniensis, deservedly the most 
widely grown of all cultivated ferns. Although not as 
hardy as the holly fern and others of that type, the 
stronger Boston fern varieties do well under house 
culture, and may be continued year after year with 
proper care. With one hundred named forms to choose 
from, the present article shows only two of distinct type. 
Native in tropics generally. 
“Mills’ Boston” (Plate 3, figure 18 and plate 4, figure 4). 
A new, compact, once pinnate variety, less than one- 
third the size of the Boston fern itself, but adapted in 
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