20 ONOCLEA SENSIBILIS. SENSITIVE FERN. 



produced, and finally, at the end of the season's growth, the 

 young, circinately arranged leaves which are to push out again 

 into barren fronds on the advent of spring. 



Modern botanists have been puzzled to account for its name 

 sensibilis, or sensitive fern. Linnaeus simply found it in use when 

 he established the binomial system, and retained what he found. 

 Thomas Moore, an authority on ferns, says it "has no other claim 

 to this name beyond the fact of its rapidly withering when cut." 

 Mr. Robinson in his "Ferns of Essex Co., Mass.," has a similar 

 idea, only that the cutting is by frost. He has noted, as the 

 WTiter of this has, that the slightest white frost injures the fronds; 

 but, after all, frost has this effect on many other of our hardy ferns, 

 and one cannot but wonder why this one more than others should 

 have been singled out as especially "sensitive" on that account. 

 Rafinesque, in his "Medical Flora," published in 1828, at page 

 67, says that the fronds of Onocica sensibilis are " sensible to a 

 harsh grasp," which " coils them when plucked ; " but this seems 

 to be rather a translation of what Linnaeus wrote of it than to 

 be an observation of his own. How far coiling may have sug- 

 gested its generic name^ Onocica, is not clear. The text-books tell 

 us it is "from 0110s, a vessel, and klcio, to enclose," but no one 

 can exacdy see the application. One tells us it Is "an ancient 

 name of Dioscorides," but the old Greek writer's plant seems to 

 have had something in connection with the ass, and to have been 

 perhaps an Anchusa or some Boraginaccoiis plant. At any rate, 

 whatever may have been the original meaning or derivation of 

 the name, we can only know that our plant had no relation 

 whatever to anything the Greeks or Romans had in their mind. 



Explanations OF THE Plate. — i. Rhizome. 2. Barren frond. 3. Fertile frond. 4. Fil)ruiis 

 roots from the rhizome. 5. Bases of the barren fronds. 6. Base of the fertile frond. 7. 

 Abortive fronds or scales. 



