Many ferns are not suitable for decoration; for instance, the male fern (Filix-mas) is of too tender a texture to stand upright when weighted with colour. The very best fern is the common brake (Pteris aquilina), as also the common polypody (Polypodium vulgare). The fronds of the brake should be gathered in August or September, when they are fully matured and hard, and also when the weather, is hot and dry. If gathered in continuous wet weather, hardly any amount of drying will prevent the fronds from ultimately becoming mouldy, when no amount of after-drying prevents them going brittle and dropping to pieces. Ferns which have lost their green colouring matter, and are going red and yellow, dry well, and retain their colours nicely if quickly dried.
Foreign ferns, such as the various adiantums, the "gold" and "silver" ferns, and many others, dry well, and retain their colour if care be used; nothing suits foreign birds better as a background than the ferns and grasses of the various countries they inhabit.
Paper used in the drying of botanical specimens is sold, but being too expensive for this particular purpose, a supply of large sheets of common grey paper used by ironmongers or grocers, or even brown paper, will suffice — the ferns should, directly they are gathered, be laid out straight on a board, or on a floor, and covered with paper, then more ferns, again a layer of paper, and so on — a board weighted with bricks should be placed over all, and suffered to remain for a few days; the ferns are then to be turned, the paper dried, and the process repeated.
When thoroughly dry, the ferns may be coloured with oil paint thinned with turps and varnish, sufficient to give lustre without shininess. Here and there break the green colour with white, red, blue, and yellow, in a manner which will occur to anyone having artistic ability. Ferns treated in this manner soon dry, and retain their colour for an indefinite period, the only thing to be said against them being their rather unnatural flatness — due to pressure; this, however, may be counteracted by a little judgment during the drying, one plan being the regulation of pressure at certain points, aided also by clean dry sand.
Several hard-leaved plants (mostly foreign) found in our conservatories are also excellent driers, many taking colour readily.
Many grasses (not the flowers, but the leaves or blades) dry well. Amongst the best of these is the "wiregrass," found in woods, growing especially over runnels in those localities. The flower also of this plant is most eligible as a decorative agent. The wood melick is another elegant and suitable plant.
The sedges (Carex) dry and colour well, as also several of the water-rushes, reeds, and flags. The "toad-rush" (Juncus bufonius), and its allies, found in damp places, by roads, by canals, and in pasture or corn-fields, dry and colour excellently.
Sphagnum, or bog moss, especially when having pink tips, is a most beautiful object; the only thing to be said against it is the difficulty of getting it free from water, and the length of time it takes afterwards to dry.
Mosses of various sorts growing in woods on trees — lichens, gold and grey, mosses or lichen-covered twigs, sprigs of heather, furze, sea-lavender — all dry well, and come in usefully.
Many persons like their moss and grasses dyed: this is perhaps allowable in some cases for common work; but if a bird or a mammal is nicely mounted, the plainer the fitting, and nearer nature, the better. To those, however, who desire to dye their grasses, I recommend Judson's powder dyes as the readiest medium, the directions for manipulating which are given with them. Any rough grass in flower does for dyeing, and a visit to the fields just before haymaking will supply the amateur with all he wants for this.