British Ferns . 
89 
looking fern, rather difficult to manage, but deserving 
good generalship. If planted out give it a shaded, 
sheltered spot, and at least half a barrow full of a 
mixture consisting of loam two parts, peat one part, 
sharp grit and small broken bricks one part. It is a 
good pot plant if kept in a moist frame. 
Pteris. —P . aquilina , the brakes, or bracken, is one 
of the best known of all. Plant it out in good loam or 
peat where it will have room to run, as it is a persistent 
traveller. Ten years ago I planted a piece not so big 
as my hand on a bank in my out-door fernery, and now 
it covers at least ten square yards of ground; at one point 
in its course it has crossed the gravel walk and come 
up on the other side. It makes a good pot plant, and 
also a good wall plant if planted at the foot of a shady 
wall and kept up by means of horizontally placed 
lengths of tarred string or copper wire. These supports 
should be placed about a foot apart; they will not be 
visible, and the effect will be a wall richly fringed as 
with climbing ferns. To see the bracken as it should 
be seen, we must go to the breezy moorland and skirt 
the warm woodside; it is, perhaps, the most truly 
rustic plant in Britain. 
Scolopendrium. — S. vulgare is the common harts- 
tongue, one of the very first requisites of the hardy 
fernery. This plant will not live in the full sunshine, 
and it needs a good mellow loamy soil, or tough fibrous 
peat, with plenty of moisture to attain the growth it 
should, say a length of two to four feet. It is, how¬ 
ever, an accommodating plant, as the fern hunter will 
soon learn by observation, for it will be found on damp 
