Flowerless-Plant Study 



68, 



Teacher's Story 



It is well for the 

 children to study the 

 animals and plants 

 which have a world- 

 wide distribution. 

 There is something 

 comforting in finding 

 a familiar plant in 

 strange countries ; and 

 when I have found 

 the bracken on the 

 coast ranges of Cali- 

 fornia, on the rugged 

 sides of the Alps, and 

 in many other far 

 places, I have always 

 experienced a thrill of 

 delightful memories of 

 the fence corners of 

 the homestead farm. 

 Since the bracken is 

 so widespread, it is 

 natural that it should 

 find a place in litera- 

 ture and popular 

 legend. As it clothes 

 tihe mountains of Scot- 

 land, it is much sung 

 of in Scottish poetry. 

 Many superstitions 

 cluster around it its 

 seed, if caught at 

 midnight on a white 

 napkin, is supposed to 

 render the possessor 

 invisible. Professor 

 Clute, in Our Ferns in 

 Their Haunts, gives a 

 delightful chapter 

 about the relation of 

 the bracken to people. 

 For nature-study 

 purposes, the bracken 

 is valuable as a lesson 

 en the intricate pat- 

 terns of the fern leaf; 

 it is in fact a lesson in 

 pinnateness. The two 

 lower branches are 

 large and spreading' 



THE BRACKEN 



Bracken. 

 Photo by Verne Morton. 



