182 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



and hardened as that of any human rancher or 

 ' * desert rat. ' ' The coffee fern, indeed, where shade 

 is scarce, takes on a reddish hue, as though sun- 

 burned. Both are species of the genus which bot- 

 anists call Pellaea, and may be identified by the 

 manner in which their spore cases form a more or 

 less confluent line along the edge of the frond di- 

 visions, like a raised binding cord. The fronds are 

 many times divided. The leaflets in the case of the 

 coffee-fern (Pellaea andromedaefolia) , are about 

 the size and shape of a flattened grain of coffee, 

 the fancied resemblance to which, particularly in 

 the brown days of summer, has given rise to the 

 common name. In the bird-foot fern (Pellaea orni- 

 thopus), the ultimate divisions are small and sharp- 

 pointed, arranged curiously upon the stem in pairs 

 of three each, that form such a striking resemblance 

 to the three spreading toes of tiny birds' feet, that 

 it was not in human nature to resist dubbing the 

 fern by the common name it bears in witness of that 

 marked peculiarity. 



But after all, the fern which is nearest to most 

 Calif ornians' hearts is the famous gold-back fern 

 the Gymnogramme triangularis of the botanists. It, 

 too, is one of von Chamisso 's discoveries on the fa- 

 mous voyage of the Rurik, and is a common fern 

 from the southern tip of the Lower California 



