254 



FEKiVS. 



fill fern after myself. But to return to my Osmunda ; the root-stock of 

 the Osmunda rcgalis is very hard, stout and knotty in age, often standing 

 many inches above the surface of the ground and sending up many 

 slender stipes, which are circinate in the bud, but not so warmly clothed 

 with chaffy scales as the Aspidiums and others. The stipes of the 

 young, and also of the sterile fronds, are of a rosy red tint, deepening 

 into blackish brown near the root in the old and fertile fronds. I 

 know not a more beautiful appearance than a grove of these stately 

 ferns makes in their bright, lively green, summer dress, above which 

 is seen the rich cinnamon brown tufts of the fruit-bearing pinnre, 

 bending their graceful foliage over the brink of some lonely lake as if to 

 kiss the reflection mirrored on its surface. The pinnated divisions of 

 Osmunda are opposite, or nearly so ; the pinnules of the older, stouter 

 fronds are an inch in length and half an inch in width, not very close on 

 the mid-rib ; those of the younger and sterile fronds slender and paler in 

 colour. There is a great variety in the foliage of this fern ; sometimes 

 the pinnules are eared or auricled, the margins waved, notched, crenate, 

 or finely serrate (saw-toothed), or in young ones quite smooth, small and 

 delicately thin ; the stipes red, slender and drooping gracefully 

 downwards. 



The indusia appear to be lobes or parts of the pinnules transformed 

 -into berry-shaped masses that conceal and cover the sori, and open with 

 a slit, when the seeds are ripe, to let them escape from their carefully 

 sealed prison. What wondrous care, what consummate wisdom is here 

 displayed by the Creator in the protection of the life-containing germ of 

 a simple fern. It is as if a sort of maternal instinct had been imparted 

 to the parent plant to shield the embryo from every possible injury and 

 to insure its safety through all the mysteries of its infant state, till the 

 time should come for it to be launched forth to find a home and 

 nourishment in the bosom of the earth. Our fern is, by some authors 

 supposed to be a distinct variety from the British, but as the description 

 given in Moore's " Handbook of British Ferns " describes our's exactly, 

 I cannot do better than rei)roduce it : 



" The fronds are circinate in vernation, and when young, delicate 

 and very tender, shooting up with rapidity and attaining in some places 

 a height of ten or twelve feet in damp ground, in drier situations from 

 two to four ; they appear in May and are destroyed by early frosts. 

 The stipe is stout, smooth, without scales, tinged with red while young ; 

 fronds, lanceolate, bi-pinnate ; pinna: arranged in opposite pairs with 

 opposite or alternate pinnules, often lobed or auricled at the base, 

 serrated or otherwise ; the venation very distinct ; each j)innule has a 

 prominent mid-vein ; the veins from this are forked, and the venules 



