Cultivation of Marsh Ferns . 25 
dimensions, and produce abundance of fruitful fronds 
in damp spongy peat. I never saw this and the Osmunda 
grow so grandly as in a wet gully I struck upon once 
when fern hunting in a wood near Oakshot in Surrey. 
There the Osmund was my equal in stature, and the 
fruiting fronds of the blechnum just reached my chin. 
It was a very damp spongy spot, yet the ferns stood a 
little above the water line. 
Charming plants to associate with the moisture-loving 
ferns are the Equisetums or Horsetails,. Get Equisetum 
sylvaticum if you can, and plant it in wet spongy peat 
in a sheltered nook, and you will have a bit of vegeta¬ 
tion that will make you proud of the land of which 
it is a native,—that is, if you happen to be a true 
Britisher, which the plant is,—if not, be glad now and 
then that you came here, for if this is not in any 
especial manner the land of ferns, it is at all events the 
land of people who love them. 
ATHYRIUM FELIX ECEMINA, VAR. ERIZELLIiE. 
