Flowerless-Plant Study 



687 



ture, is much used in holiday decoration, hence its common name, which 

 is more easily remembered than Polystichum acrostichoides, which is its 

 real name. It loves to grow in well-shaded woodlands, liking better the 

 trees which shed their leaves than the evergreens; it is indeed well- 

 adapted to thrive in damp, cold shade; it is rarely found on slopes which 

 face the south, and sunshine kills it. 



LESSON CLXXIII 

 THE CHRISTMAS FERN 



Leading thought The fern has a creeping underground stem called the 

 rootstock, which pushes forward and sends up fresh fronds each year. 

 Some of the fronds of the Christmas fern bear spores on the lower surface 

 of the terminal pinnse. 



Method This lesson should be given during the latter part of May, 

 when the fruit-dots are still green. Take up a fern and transplant it, in a 

 dish of moss, in the schoolroom, and later plant it in some convenient 

 shady place. The pupils should sketch the fertile frond from the upper 

 side so as to fix in their minds the contracted pinnae of the tip; one of 

 the lower pinnse should be drawn in detail, showing the serrate edge, 

 the ear and the venation. The teacher should use the following terms 

 constantly and insis- 

 tently, so as to make 

 the fern nomencla- 

 ture a part of the 

 school vocabulary, 

 and thus fit the 

 pupils for using fern 

 manuals. 



A frond is all of 

 the fern which grows 

 on one stem from the 

 rootstock; the blade 

 is that portion which 

 bears leaflets; the 

 stipe is the stem or 

 petiole; therachisis 

 the midrib and is a 

 continuation of the 

 stipe ; the pinnule 

 is a leaflet of the last 

 division; the pinna 

 is a chief division of 

 the midrib or rachis, 

 when the fern is com- 

 pound; the sori are 

 the fruit dots; the 

 indusiumisthe mem- 

 brane covering the 

 fruiting organs; the 

 sporangia are the 



tiny brown globules, Leaf-print of a fern with the parts named. This fern is 

 and are the spore twice pinnate. 



Remains of last- 

 year's frondt. 



