CHAPTER XXII, 



ELEMENTARY STUDIES OF FERNS. 



FERNS may be grown successfully in school for orna- 

 mental purposes. A place may also be found for them in 

 any warm, moist, or shady corner of the school garden. 

 Pupils will also be familiar with their occurrence in woods 

 and other shady situations. 



The following brief notes are given as suggestive of 

 lines of simple study which might be followed with a view 

 to developing intelligent interest. Let us ask our pupils a 

 few questions. Have they ever seen flowers upon ferns ? 

 Most will answer no ; but some one may have seen or 

 heard of the "flowering fern." Ferns are non-flowering 

 plants, and we shall for the moment put aside the question 

 of the so-called "flowering fern." 



Our next question is : What are the parts of the fern 

 we are familiar with ? The large green leafy " fronds." 

 What are fronds ? The fronds are the leaves. But we 

 shall note that some of them serve a purpose not served 

 by the foliage leaves of flowering plants. From what do 

 the fronds arise? If we dig up an ordinary bracken 

 fern out of doors or any of the usual ferns grown in pots, 

 we shall see that the long stalks of the fronds arise from a 

 somewhat stout dark-coloured " rootstock " underground, 

 but near the surface. This rootstock is really an under- 

 ground stem and from it there pass down into the ground 

 fibrous rootlets. 



Let us return to the fronds. Have we ever noted how 

 they arise in the spring, or how they are folded in the 



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