CHAP. li FERNS; J Q5 



(born, as it has been said, to abolish cryptogamy)* 

 each of whom acquired his celebrity from the 

 depth or accuracy of his investigation in this 

 obscure and difficult department of botany. 



As in the perfect plants, so in the imperfect Divisible 



,., . P . ... into tribes 



plants, the eye readily recognizes traces ot a simih- or families, 

 tude or dissimilitude of external habit and deport- 

 ment characterizing the different individuals of 

 which they consist, and suggesting also the idea of 

 distinct tribes or families. And upon this principle 

 different botanists have instituted different divisions, 

 more or less extensive, according to their own 

 peculiar views of the subject. But one of the most 

 generally adopted divisions of imperfect plants is that 

 by which they are distributed into Ferns, Mosses, 

 Hepaticce, Alga, Fungi; according to which several 

 heads I shall now institute my description of their 

 external structure. 



CHAPTER L 



FERNS. 



FERNS are herbaceous, and for the most part Descrip- 

 stemless plants, dying down to the ground in the habitats! 

 winter, but furnished with a perennial root from 

 which there annually issues a frond bearing the fruc- 

 tification. The favourite habitats of many of 

 them are heaths and uncultivated grounds inter- 



o 2 



