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scientific research has shown that in most ferns, as in most 

 flowers, the two sexes exist, to which the so-called Lady 

 Fern is no exception, the equally modern research of the 

 fern hunter has proved that in diversity of costume and 

 delicacy of taste, the lady-like element comes out very 

 strongly indeed. No fern, in fact, in all the world has by 

 virtue of its sportive character adopted so many fashions, 

 beautiful or curious, as has the Lady Fern. Even with 

 the common types, which we find in such profusion in 

 ferny country places, in glens, damp woodlands, ditches, 

 and indeed in most shady places in the vicinity of water, 

 we often find it difficult to match exactly any two plants 

 in detail of cutting, texture and habits. Like ladies of 

 the human persuasion, each seems to have a taste of its 

 own, and Dame Nature, sympathetically, has invested them 

 with the faculty of indulging it in this way, though, as a 

 rule, to a limited extent. Every now and again, however, 

 for some reason best known to herself, she invents a new 

 fashion entirely. How, we know not. All that we know, as 

 fern hunters, is that some fine day, rambling through the 

 Lady Fern's particular domain, we find some regal form 

 enthroned in state amid her court of commoners, or, 

 equally meritorious, but more modest, endeavouring to hide 

 her unique charms behind her neighbour's flounces so to 

 speak. To drop metaphor, it is a simple fact that while 

 the Athyviiim ranks with the three or four of our native 

 species which have given the bulk of varietal sports, it 

 eclipses them all in examples of quite peculiar formation, 

 to which no other fern has so far afforded parallels. 



Normally the Lady Fern, delicate as is its make, is a 

 remarkably robust and sturdy fern, and under favourable 

 circumstances, such as we find in a secluded glen or 

 ravine, walled in by shading trees in such a way that the 

 blustering breeze is entirely excluded, and traversed by a 

 wild cascady stream which saturates at once both soil and 

 air with congenial humidity, we may find huge feathery 

 specimens shoulder high and a yard and more through. 



