102 FILICES 
an ever-verdant miniature forest in the Wardian case. Even the herbarium, 
with its dried specimens, gives a far better idea of the usual condition of 
the fern than it does of flowering plants. Leaves and blossoms may, by great 
care, be preserved so as to retain somewhat of their elegant form, and a 
little of their natural beauty of colour. The poet could remember with joy 
the teachings of one who showed him 
‘‘ How to make sweet pictures of dried flowers, 
Cull’d in the lanes when glow’d the sultry hours ; 
Then press’d and dyed, and all on lawn dis-spread, 
To look as infants do that smile when dead.” 
But the fern spread out on the page scarcely gives us even an image of 
death ; its green is so living, its form so perfect, that we could fancy it had 
just been gathered in all its pride of beauty from shadowy woodland or 
rocky glen. 
A popular description of a fern might be: “A large leaf or branch of 
leaves, bearing no flowers.” Yet that leaf-like spray differs from a leaf in 
several particulars of structure ; the most marked of which is, that it repre- 
sents the leaf and fruit conjoined, bearing its fructification, in most cases, on 
its under surface. The word frond, therefore, applied to the green expansion 
of a fern, though it originated in the idea that the leaf of a fern was com- 
posed of a branch and a leaf, is not altogether an unnecessary distinction. 
The frond consists of two parts—the leafy portion and the stalk. The stalk 
is often called the rachis, but, strictly speaking, it is composed of two parts. 
That part which bears the green leaf is the rachis; and the lower portion 
of the stalk, destitute of the green expansion, is the stipes. When the frond 
is so divided, that, beside the principal stalk, another set of stalks runs 
through the green divisions, each of these last is a secondary rachis ; the term 
primary rachis referring to the main stalk. 
The lower part of the stalk, the stipes, is in some of our ferns naked ; 
but it is more often beset with chaffy scales, usually thin, and frequently of 
a pale brown colour. Sometimes these are few in number, and found only 
at the base ; but occasionally they are continued along the rachis, becoming 
smaller as they are higher on the stalks. The young fronds of several of 
the large and common ferns may be seen in May, looking very singular and 
beautiful on the green bank, coiled up and covered with large scales ; and 
these scales afford, too, by their mode of growth, an assistance to the 
botanist in the determination of species. The true stem of the fern generally 
lies along the surface of the ground, or below it, and from its resemblance to 
a root is termed the rhizoma. The stems and fronds of ferns have neither 
true wood nor bark, but are strengthened by bundles of tubes and fibres, 
which are embedded in cellular structure. The harder part is external, and 
the centre is either hollow, or more commonly filled with a soft pulpy matter ; 
so that the stem of a tree fern very much resembles that of a palm in this 
respect, as well as in the cylindrical form which it often assumes. 
The green expansion of a frond differs in various families. In some it 
is delicate and almost transparent—a mere green film ; in other cases it is 
tough and leathery, or thin, crisp, and brittle. Now we find it of bright 
grass-green, or it is of a dull olive, or of deep dark or brownish, or greyish- 
