92 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



Fern, but we prefer not to assist in giving further currency to 

 this name because it is not only inaccurate but a contradiction 

 in terms for no fern is a flowering plant. But " Royal " seems 

 a designation particularly fitting to this noble fern. Old plants 

 have enormous woody rootstocks which have branched into a 

 large number of crowns ; and the lance-shaped fronds of 

 individuals in favourable situations may be as much as 

 twelve feet in length and three feet broad, though in more 

 open heathy places their height may not exceed a couple of 

 feet. A half of this length will usually be bare stout stipes, 

 which is at first reddish-brown in colour, turning yellow later. 

 The base of the stipes is flattened out, spoon-shaped, with thin 

 margins. (Plates 96, 98, 100, 102.) 



The broad fronds are twice pinnate ; the pinnae in opposite 

 pairs, and these again broken up into oblong pinnules, with or 

 without short stalks, and ranging from an inch to three inches 

 long. The frond texture is leathery and of a dull yellow-green 

 colour. The uppermost pinnae are but slightly divided or quite 

 simple. In the fertile fronds these simple pinnae are contracted 

 and so thoroughly invested by the crowds of confluent sori that 

 little or no green is visible, and the appearance presented by 

 the upper part of the fronds is much like that of the flower 

 spikes of Dock. There is no indusium to the sori, and the 

 globular spore capsules split into two valves by a vertical fissure, 

 there being no elastic ring as in the foregoing genera of ferns 

 (Plate 4). The spores are ripe from June to August. In spite 

 of its robust appearance and the leathery texture of the fronds, 

 the Royal Fern shrivels at the first serious touch of frost. 



The Royal Fern is a plant of bogs, river-sides and swampy 

 woods, throughout the whole of the British Islands, between 

 the extremes of north and south. That is the natural dis- 

 tribution as it might have been described fifty years ago. 

 To-day, many of its old haunts in which it was formerly 

 abundant know it no more. The dealer and the rapacious 



