INTRODUCTION. 



AMONG our indigenous plants there are few 

 that more invite and reward our care, than the 

 tribe of Ferns. The commoner, but not there- 

 fore less striking, kinds are easily transplanted 

 at any season. All are perennials,* and require 

 but ordinary attention to prosper. Nor is it a 

 slight recommendation to their study and culti- 

 vation, that our native species may be com- 

 prised in about five-and-forty, the genera being 

 put at sixteen : so that we have an easy limit 

 both to our inquiries and our acquisition. As 

 our companions in the drawing-room during the 

 winter, they will thrive under glass, demanding 

 neither successive watering there, nor change 



* An exception may be made of a little annual lately 

 found in Jersey the Grymnogramma Leptophylla. Eoot 

 tufted. From 3 to 6 inches. Very delicate, short, pinnae, with 

 tiny fan or wedge-shaped pinnules, scalloped above. Sori 

 linear, afterwards somewhat round, uniting, and covering 

 the whole under surface. Taller, larger, and more compound, 

 in foreign parts. A full account and figure of this is given 

 in the last edition of Moore's 'Handbook,' which is improved 

 by a tabular arrangement of the districts in which each 

 British species is indigenous respectively. 



