BRITISH FERNS . 
2<S 
under favourable circumstances, no fern can rival it in 
delicacy and brilliancy of foliage. Dr. Ball pointed 
out to Mr. Newman a curious property possessed by 
this fern when growing in a Ward’s case, without 
communication with the external air. The sori under 
these conditions will vegetate in situ , and the young 
plants take root like parasites in the substance of the 
old one. 
The soil in which the Maiden Hair is best grown 
is a mixture of loam, leaf-mould, and silver sand, 
mixed with small pieces of sandstone or freestone. 
Mr. Johnson directs that the pots in which it is placed 
should be plunged in shallow pans of water, and the 
decayed fronds removed from time to time. It looks 
very pretty in a hanging basket or cocoa-nut shell, 
or growing between two large shells of the Pecten 
hind, filled with soil and moss, and suspended by 
wire, in the inside of a conservatory or Ward’s case 
The fronds resist water, or are so smooth that it 
always runs from them ; so that Pliny says, “ In 
vain you plunge it in water, you cannot wet it.” 
This peculiarity appears to have suggested its name 
from adiantos , dry. 
