CHAPTER V. 



FERN GROUPS. 



HERE is relationship in the Fern- 

 world; and although we do not 

 propose strictly to adopt the dis- 

 tinctions made by botanists, we 

 shall observe a certain order in arranging 

 our favourites. Hitherto we have described 

 those Ferns which live, so to speak, in a sort 

 of isolation amongst us. Of the ten first de- 

 scribed, each one stands alone, and is, so far as 

 Britain is concerned, the only species of its genus. 

 In treating of these, we have not thought it neces- 

 sary to place them according to any particular 

 method of arrangement. There is a certain rela- 

 tionship existing between the Moonwort and the 



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