4 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ January, 
posal by Mr. B. S. Williams, wlio introduced tlie variety to our gardens. It is, 
as its name implies, a native of Japan. The fronds grow from 1 ft. to 1-i ft. in 
lieight, and are furnished with one or two pairs of linear-lanceolate pinnae, 5 in. 
or 6 in. long, and a somewhat longer terminal one, the edges becoming serrulate, 
especially towards the tip. In the older and more vigorous plants the lower pinnae 
become divided, producing one or two lateral segments or pinnules, wliich only 
differ in being proportionately smaller. The full-grown plant, therefore, is 
bipinnate. The veins are closely reticulated near the costa, but on the outer 
half of the pinnae or pinnule they run out straight to the margin in parallel 
lines. The sori are not covered by any indusium, but are what is called naked, 
and they follow the lines of the veins, and hence are in parallel lines near the 
outer edge, and in reticulated lines near the costa. It is a neat-growing and 
interesting greenhouse fern, possibly hardy in favourable situations.—T. Moore. 
THE CAKNATION AND PICOTEE. 
Chapter I.— Pots—Compost—Work for January. 
AEDENING, in the past thirty years, has known a development without a 
parallel, I believe, in any similar period, if not in any period of its history. 
All around London, and in the neighbourhoods of our provincial 
cities, houses of more or less pretension devoted to plant-cultivation have been 
erected, I think I may without e/xaggeration say, by thousands, where up to the 
time named tens only existed. A Conservatory, indeed, has become a necessary 
adjunct of houses of the most moderate pretension, and in the high summer 
months, July and August, when these houses are usually denuded or nearly 
denuded of their occupants, they offer the very accommodation needed to the 
perfect development and complete enjoyment of the beautiful flowers of which 
I propose to treat. 
In the brief monthly papers which I hope for one year to submit to the 
readers of this serial, I desire to show to proprietors of these houses and sub¬ 
urban residents generally, the claims the Carnation and Picotee have upon their 
admiration, and the special adaptability of these flowers to their wants. 
In thus setting forth the title of the Carnation and Picotee to a wider or more 
popular cultivation than has yet been accorded them (in one sense no flowers can 
be more popular), it is no part of my purpose to depreciate any other flower— 
to the florist, all flowers are beautiful; or to discuss the reasons which may have 
deterred from their cultivation, whether due to the petty tyranny of fashion, or 
to the repulsion natural to arise from the nasty nostrums and paradoxical 
directions of an elder generation of florists. When pigeons’ dung, sugar-bakers’ 
scum, and other matters indescribable were supposed to be necessary ingredients 
of a compost for their growth, and a knowledge of their properties could only be 
acquired by an initiation into the mysteries of supposed to be successive secrecies, 
it is not wonderful if many turned from their cultivation in despair, or more in 
disgust. 
