VIII 

 A CHAT ABOUT CALIFOKNIA FERNS 



IT is somewhat disappointing to the plant lover 

 in California to find the fern flora so meager. 

 Throughout the length and breadth of this empire 

 of a State, sweeping as it does from the sea's level 

 upward through every sort of climate to alpine 

 heights of fourteen thousand feet, and magnificently 

 rich in flowering plants, there are but half a hun- 

 dred species of ferns. Of this number fifteen are 

 denizens only of high mountain fastnesses or arid 

 deserts strange habitat, this last, for a fern and 

 are thus outside the track of the ordinary traveler. 

 As many more are so very rare as to be prizes in 

 the sight of the oldest botanists. This leaves about 

 twenty species all told that the casual collector is 

 likely to come upon, and of these a round dozen in- 

 cludes all that may be termed at all common in terri- 

 tory known to the average traveler. 



The reason of this paucity lies in the fact that 

 ferns are a distinctively tropical family, and for 

 their best development require a great deal of mois- 



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