250 FERNS. 



and attaining to a far handsomer, more plume-like form ; the fertile 

 fronds are very dissimilar from the sterile. They are the production of 

 plants of several years' growth from old, woody, root-stocks, on short, 

 stout, deeply-channelled, strongly-nerved stipes ; the fruit dots are round, 

 on the free veins and veinlets of the contracted pinnules, which are 

 rolled back, forming a rigid bead-like object, the two opposite lines 

 meeting together on either side of the mid-rib, and forming a covering 

 to the numerous clusters of sporangia, which by their thickened 

 substance they effectually guard and conceal. At first these singular 

 fruiting fronds are green, but assume in maturity a rich coffee-brown 

 and take the semblance of the quill-feathers of a dark plumed bird. So 

 perfect is the deception, that at first sight you marvel how these stiff 

 brown feathers got stuck into the heart of the tall, graceful, waving circle 

 of Ostrich-Feather fronds that surrounds them. These fertile fronds 

 remain persistent all through the Winter and late into the Spring of the 

 following year, but the winds and rains of Autumn and the frosts and 

 snows of Winter begin to wear the surface and tear the cover that was so 

 tightly secured, and then you may detect the leafy substance and 

 nature of the pinnules, and perceive the veinings of the leaves ; and 

 the secrets that were so carefully concealed, within the now torn and 

 ragged outer coating, are laid open to the curious eye of the Naturalist. 

 The stipe and rachis of the Ostrich-Feather Fern are, as I observed 

 before, deeply channelled, and the sides rendered convex by two stout 

 elastic nerves on either side of the stem. Near the root-stock the stipe 

 is flattened like the handle of a spoon, but tapers to a narrow point at 

 its insertion with the root-stock. The flattened part is smooth, slightly 

 hollowed, black, and polished like whalebone, and finely fringed with 

 short, stiff, glandular hairs. 



The fronds for the ensuing season are circinate in vernation, early 

 shewing the hard, round, rolled up contents beneath the thick covering 

 of pale, membranous, chaffy scales ; the roots are strong, black and 

 wiry. The root-stock attains to a great age, and becomes very hard, 

 black, and woody. 



Brittlk Bi.adder-Fkrn — Cystopteris. fragilis, (Bernh). 



This truly graceful fern affects the chinks and crevices of lime- 

 stone rocks, under the overhanging shelter of bushes and long grass, 

 where it is shaded from the ardent rays of our July and August suns. 

 It was in the limestone rocks in the quarry at Lakefield, near the 

 Otonabee rapids, that I first discovered tufts of this charming fern. 

 There, nourished by the moist atmosphere from the rives, almost hidden 

 from sight, it adorned the rude rock with its drooping slender fronds of 



