. The book of choice ferns for the garden, conservatory. and stove : describing and giving explicit cultural directions for the best and most striking ferns and selaginellas in cultivation. Illustrated with coloured plates amd numerous wood engravings. Identification; Ferns. 176 THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. D. (Balantium) Culcita—Bal-an'-ti-mn ; Cul'-cit-a (a cushion), LEeritier. This very handsome, large-growing, greenhouse species, native of Madeira and the Azores, where it is found at elevations of from 2000ft. to 3000ft., is popularly known under the name of " Cushion Fern," from th
. The book of choice ferns for the garden, conservatory. and stove : describing and giving explicit cultural directions for the best and most striking ferns and selaginellas in cultivation. Illustrated with coloured plates amd numerous wood engravings. Identification; Ferns. 176 THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. D. (Balantium) Culcita—Bal-an'-ti-mn ; Cul'-cit-a (a cushion), LEeritier. This very handsome, large-growing, greenhouse species, native of Madeira and the Azores, where it is found at elevations of from 2000ft. to 3000ft., is popularly known under the name of " Cushion Fern," from the fact that its crown and the base of its fronds are covered with a dense, woolly covering of a soft, silky nature, so abundant that it has now become an article of commerce. B. Cidcita cannot be strictly called a Tree Fern, inasmuch as its trunk seldom, if ever, rises more than a few inches above the ground (Fig. 40), but it is as highly decorative and as eiFective as any arborescent kind. Its fronds, fully IJft. long, 1ft. broad, and tripinnate (three times divided to the midrib), are borne on stout, upright stalks as long again as their leafy portion. The lower ]3innules (leafits) are deltoid (in shape of the Greek delta. A), and have egg-shaped divisions, cut down to the rachis (stalk) in the lower part, with oblong, unequal- sided, deeply-toothed segments of a leathery texture and wedge-shaped at the base. The fertile fronds are so much contracted that there is very little membrane left between the sori (spore masses), which are one Ime across and have a smgular covering somewhat resembling a purse.—Hooker^ Species Filicum, i., p. 70. Nicholso?ij .Dictionary of Gardening, i., p. 467. Lowe, Ferns British and Exotic, viii., t, 39. D. Cidcita, or, as it is most usually called, Balantium culcita, is a grand Fern, growing naturally in very swampy places, as is testified by the fact that most of the imported clumps of it arrive here entirely covered with Hymenophyllum tunhri
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectferns, bookyear1892
