FERNS AS A HOBBY 



tribe, patent to the most careless observer, this lack 

 of fern literature is surprising. It is possible that 

 Thoreau is right in claiming that " we all feel the 

 ferns to be farther from us essentially and sympathet- 

 ically than the phenogamous plants, the roses and 

 weeds for instance." This may be true in spite of 

 the fact that to some of us the charm of ferns is 

 as great, their beauty more subtle, than that of the 

 flowering plants, and to learn to know them by 

 name, to trace them to their homes, and to observe 

 their habits is attended with an interest as keen, 

 perhaps keener, than that which attends the study 

 of the names, haunts, and habits of the flowers. 



That ferns possess a peculiar power of blinding 

 their votaries to the actual position they occupy 

 in the minds of people in general seems to me evi- 

 denced by the following quotations, taken respec- 

 tively from Mr. Underwood's and Mr. Williamson's 

 introductions. 



So competent and coldly scientific an authority 

 as Mr. Underwood opens his book with these 

 words : 



" In the entire vegetable world there are probably 

 no forms of growth that attract more general notice 

 than the Ferns." 



The lack of fern literature, it seems to me, proves 

 the fallacy of this statement. If ferns had been 

 more generally noticed than other " forms of 

 growth " in the vegetable world, surely more would 

 have been written on the subject, and occasionally 

 someone besides a botanist would be found who could 



