Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/125

I notice many questions in Science Gossip relative to Fern Culture, and think that a few words respecting the manner in which German gardeners propagate Ferns by seed may prove interesting.

They take a cube of turfy peat about one inch and a half square, and this they dip in boiling water in order to destroy all the animal life it contains; all life, in fact, animal or vegetable, that is in it must be destroyed; it is then laid in a flat saucer, and the spores are sprinkled upon the upper side. A small quantity of water must be poured into the saucer, and it should be covered over with a bell-glass. A little water should be added from time to time, as evaporation takes place, but great care must be taken to pour it in without washing the seeds off the turf, and in five or six weeks a green moss-like substance will cover the turf, and the young fronds will gradually develope themselves.

It is a singular fact that fern-seed, which has been gathered and dried three or four years, will, when sown, germinate more quickly than fresh spores.

One of your correspondents, "W. Ormerod," seems in trouble respecting his young Ferns, which are infested with a sort of fungus. I remember being so vexed a few years ago, when I first began to try and raise Ferns from seeds, by a black mould, which my more experienced friends told me proceeded from the moisture of the soddened peat rising to the surface through the sandstone. I gave up all kinds of stone at once, and have used well-burnt cinders ever since with decided success, having never been troubled with fungus afterwards. I should be inclined to attribute "H. J. D.'s" finding of strange Ferns in the pans where he had sown his spores, to the wild Fern-seed in the soil. The German method I have just described of preparing the soil, i.e., dipping the turf in boiling water, effectually prevents this.

There are strange superstitions about Fern-seeds in various parts of England, and I know of some very curious ones in Wales. Ben Jonson, too, and Beaumont & Fletcher, allude to the "invisibility" of the person who carried Fern-seed in his pockets; whilst the ancients believed that Fern-seed was invisible from its very minuteness. Shakespeare, however, with his usual good sense, ridiculed the idea that it conferred the power of becoming invisible on the bearer.

We behold all round about us one vast union, in which no man can labour for himself, without labouring at the same time for all others.—Hyperion.

This is one of the most elegant of British scale-mosses, and well worthy the attention of the microscopist. It occurs abundantly in heathy places, where it forms large purplish-brown patches, and, at first sight, looks almost like a kind of moss, but closer inspection dispels the fancied resemblance.

The stems are from one to three inches in length, and prostrate, bearing on each side a profusion of short branchlets, which are again and again subdivided.

The leaves overlap each other, and are placed in two rows on opposite sides of the stem. Each leaf is divided into two unequal lobes, and each lobe is again cleft into two pointed segments, all of which are fringed along their margins with

long, pointed, cellular hairs. At the base of the leaves, on the under side of the stem, are smaller leaves or stipules, which are likewise cleft and fringed with hairs. All these parts, when viewed with a higher power (×300) are found to consist of roundish cells, having a disposition to become hexagonal, except in the hairs, where the cells are cylindrical, and placed end to end.

Dr. Carrington recommends the following method for the preparation and examination of these plants:—"Take a leaf; place it between two slips of glass, with a few drops of equal parts of Liquor potassæ