84 THE WOOD. 



stem copiously clothed with brown shaggy scales ; 

 hence in its young state, when its leaves are curled 

 up and concealed by the stem, it might almost be 

 mistaken for a large hairy caterpillar. The stem of 

 the Lady Fern is green and almost smooth, and its 

 leaves are cut into innumerable divisions, as fine 

 as lace-work. None of the Fern tribe possess 

 organs that can be correctly termed flowers, 

 though they produce seeds in the greatest profu- 

 sion. Examine the back of the leaf, and you will 

 be at no loss to discover where they grow. On 

 the Male Fern you will observe rows of small 

 circular scales covering a vast number of minute 

 brown bodies. Each of these is an orbicular seed- 

 vessel, encircled by an elastic jointed ring, dividing 

 it into two hemispheres. When the included 

 seeds have arrived at maturity, the ring bursts 

 spontaneously and allows the seeds to escape. The 

 latter are so minute as to be invisible to the naked 

 eye, unless there be great numbers of them 

 together. Shake a full-grown frond on a sheet of 

 white paper, and they will make themselves suffi- 

 ciently evident. The seed-vessels of the Lady 

 Fern are arranged like those of the other, on the 

 back of the leaf, but in short dark lines. The 

 fructification is most conspicuous in a Fern called 

 " Polypody," which grows very abundantly on old 

 hedges, about the decaying roots of trees. Its 

 frond is not cut into numerous segments like the 

 two which I have mentioned, but is only once 

 divided. Down each of the divisions of the upper 

 half of the frond run two parallel rows of orange- 

 coloured dots composed of a great number of 

 seed-vessels, which have no scaly covering as the 

 others have, but are furnished each with a stalk of 



