CALIFORNIA PLANTS IN THEIR HOMES 



CHAPTER VI. 



FERNS AND THEIR RELATIVES. 



How they love moisture, the ferns and their kindred! 

 You noticed how quickly they responded to the invitation 

 of the rain. The rock fern or Polypodium came above 

 ground so quickly that it was hard to catch the leaves un- 

 rolling; and that is a pity, because they are such neat little 

 balls when they first break through the soil. It is easy to 

 see why the Polypodium can grow so fast, for the under- 

 ground stem is an ample storehouse, and there is a tangle 

 of long slender roots to gather moisture. With the first 

 rains, moisture is absorbed to dissolve the stored food and 

 make it read} 7 for the use of the baby leaves that are snugly 

 curled up like little knobs along the underground stems. 

 Soon the leaves are above ground, uncoiling, and spreading 

 out millions of green cells to the light. Hold up a leaf and 

 look through it for woody strands. You can trace these 

 strands running up the slender roots, through the under- 

 ground stem, up through the leaf stem, branching through 

 every leaflet and sending off slender fibres that reach to the 

 very tips of the teeth along the leaf margin. As in the 

 seedlings, these woody strands serve to carry the raw ma- 

 terial taken in by the root-hairs, up to the green cells in the 

 leaves, there to be manufactured into useful food. 



This fern works rapidly while there is plenty of moist- 

 ure, and early in the winter you will find, on the under 

 side of some leaves, what look like tiny seeds in neat round 

 clusters. But did you ever know seeds to come without 



72 



