WHAT IS A FERN? 99 



how many thousands of houses there are in big 

 London alone without gardens ! an attempt is 

 made to compensate for its absence. Sometimes 

 the windows are filled with plants generally with 

 flowers. Even the poor hovel, even the most 

 wretched garret is provided with at least one 

 solitary flower-pot, whose occupant, pining perhaps 

 for the sun which can never reach it, drags on its 

 sickly existence, until at length it dies under the 

 influence of an unnatural atmosphere, struggling 

 to the last moment with its abnormal condition of 

 life. But it is rarely that ferns are to be seen 

 under the same conditions ; and it is because we 

 would show how it is that these lovely plants are 

 admirably adapted to live under conditions which 

 flowering plants cannot survive, that we have 

 ' written these chapters. Here we feel that it will 

 be necessary, before we proceed any further, to 

 define the position ferns occupy amongst the great 

 portion of the living world which we call the 

 vegetable kingdom. 



The simple question then at once arises : What 

 is a fern, and how is it to be distinguished from 



