246 



FERNS. 



texture of its frond than the Fairy Fern (Canadian Maiden-hair) or the 

 slender Cystopteris. From the deHcacy of the finely divided pinnules of 

 the pinnae, which terminate in points so fragile that a breath disturbs 

 them, it is very difficult to preserve this lovely fern in perfection when 

 drying, and its symmetry is destroyed unless great care is taken not to 

 ruffle or move the tender thing till it has been some days under pressure 

 and has become sufficiently dry to change the drying sheets of paper. 



The Gossamer Fern is the latest of our wood ferns to expand and 

 unroll, the upper end of the fronds remaining curled up until the month 

 of June, unless the season be warm and moist. The stipe or stalk is 

 very stout, hard, and at first of a bright rosy tint, especially in the young 

 growth ; in the older fronds the colour becomes of a rich golden browu) 

 smooth and glossy. The scales of Dicksonia are few, round or blunt, 

 thin, and pale in colour. There is a fine, minute pubescence on the 

 surface of the very light green pinnules. The pinnate divisions of the 

 frond are set close upon the rachis, crowded, opposite or alternate. I 

 have numbered from forty to sixty pairs in one frond ; the pinnules are 

 deeply divided to the mid-rib, finely toothed. The fruit dots are small 

 and round, placed at the point of the full forking veins in cup-like 

 involucres. The outline of the fronds is pyramidal, broad, and wide 

 below, and narrowing to the most delicate point at the extreme apex 

 and also of the pinnae. The root-stock is slender, running below the 

 surface and sending up many fronds at intervals, forming extensive beds 

 where the soil is light and the ground shaded. 



It was in a wood known as Preston's woods, Lakefield, that I 

 met with the beautiful Gossamer Fern growing in two large beds which 

 had been divided by a road passing through them. 



A more lovely sight than these beds of light green feathery ferns 

 presented to the eye I had never seen. So fair, so fragile they looked, 

 contrasted with the dark sombre shade of the great rough-barked 

 Hemlock trees beneath which they grew ; their delicate forms, so fairy- 

 like, just stirred by the least breath of summer wind, gave one the idea 

 of the utmost frailty ; yet these slight fronds bore the effects of the early 

 nipping frost more hardily than the coarse Bracken and some of the 

 stouter herbs around them. 



Later in October I found the delicate green of the Dicksonia 

 changed to a fine buff or creamy-white colour, shewing the ripened 

 fruit dots distinctly on the light, faded frond, as beautiful in that faded 

 state as in its summer verdure. 



The Gossamer Fern ap])ears to increase more by the extension of 

 its creeping root-stock than by seed. From the strength and stoutness 



