Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



its upper side, and a 

 number of small, branch- 

 ing rootlets arise, without 

 regularity or system, from 

 its lower surface. Some- 

 times the half-buried main 

 stem, or " rootstock," is 

 many inches long, and 

 at one end of it there is 

 a large actively-dividing 

 cell the growing point. 

 But in the tropical tree- 

 ferns the main stem stands 

 erect, and the " growing 

 point" is at its tip-top. 

 When our native ferns 

 appear above ground in 

 spring, their leaves, or 

 fronds, are rolled down- 

 ward from the tips like 

 croziers, and by this token 

 we can distinguish them 

 si? from their near kindred, 

 the adder's - tongues 

 FIG. 71. "Male-fern" (A spidium (Ophioglossaceae), which 



felix-maas), showing the pros- v 



trate root-stock and the down- en ter the world upright. 



ward roll and scaly covering of 



the young fronds. The roly-poly ferns of 



(From the Vegetable World.) 



