IN CALIFORNIA 171 



its feet in the water, its great clustered fronds ris- 

 ing in stately fountains of verdure that frequently 

 exceed in height the stature of the tallest man. To 

 those uninitiated in the ways of ferns it may be said 

 that instead of flowers followed by true seeds, ferns 

 bear upon the backs or margins of their fronds and 

 usually hidden away from sight, small collections of 

 minute dust-like particles called spores, which per- 

 form the office of seeds to reproduce the plant. In 

 the old days when the doctrine of signatures was 

 held as religiously by the learned as the germ theory 

 is to-day, the belief prevailed that ferns had seed 

 but that these were ordinarily invisible; if found, 

 however, they would transfer to the finder their 

 power of invisibility. Saint John's Eve, the great 

 midsummer festival of medieval Europe, when 

 fairies were abroad and the air was ripe for magic 

 rites, was a favorite time for the quest of fern seed, 

 and the folk lore of the Old World is full of refer- 

 ence to it. Shakespeare, for instance, in "King 

 Henry IV," makes Gadshill say in the scene at the 

 innyard at Eochester, "We have the receipt of fern- 

 seed, we walk invisible." 



In our matter-of-fact time, we may find "fern- 

 seed" almost any day of the year, by turning back 

 a frond and examining the under side through a 

 pocket lens. We are given thus a glimpse into an 



