. The century book of gardening; a comprehensive work for every lover of the garden. Gardening. as occur in wilder and tropical regions, is oncer- tain, but the fact remains that while natural sports of exotic Ferns are extremely few, those of our native Ferns run into thousands, some of the species, such as the Lady Fern (Athyrium Filix-foemina), Shield Ferns (Polystichum aculea- tum and P. annulare), and the Hart's-tongue (Seolopendrium vulgare), have yielded their hundreds apiece, while the number has been immensely augmented by selection from their seedlings. Nearly all the native species
. The century book of gardening; a comprehensive work for every lover of the garden. Gardening. as occur in wilder and tropical regions, is oncer- tain, but the fact remains that while natural sports of exotic Ferns are extremely few, those of our native Ferns run into thousands, some of the species, such as the Lady Fern (Athyrium Filix-foemina), Shield Ferns (Polystichum aculea- tum and P. annulare), and the Hart's-tongue (Seolopendrium vulgare), have yielded their hundreds apiece, while the number has been immensely augmented by selection from their seedlings. Nearly all the native species (about forty) have afforded examples, many of which are curious, but many far and away more beautiful than the common types from which they sprang. It is, of course, this feature of improvement in decorative value which is our main justification in advocating their culture, since for mere oddities w e have no fancy, while ardent admirers of exotics have stood entranced before some of our thorough-bred British Ferns, and declared no exotic could vie with them. The chief types of variation are two, viz. : 1. Cresting or tasselling, in which the normal tapering points of the fronds and side divisions are formed symmetrically into tassels, ranging from simple forks in some varieties to repeatedly divided and many stranded hunches in others. The fronds themselves may also be divided from merely twin fronds to such excessive and repeated branching that a ball of Moss is the apparent result ; and 2. The plumose, by many considered the more beautiful, in which the normal side divisions of the frond and its parts are developed into extremely delicate dissection, so that a frond normally bipinnate, that is, with side divisions (pinna-) divided once again (pinnules), has these latter sub - divisions recut twice or even thrice, the result being intensely beauti- ful, and equivalent to the transformation of a goose feather into an ostrich plume. These two main types are associated, in the n
Size: 1795px × 1392px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectgardening, bookyear19
