210 ACOTYLEDONS FERNS MOSSES DIAGRAM 18 



FAMILY OF FEKNS. 



Ferns are green, and resemble other plants. The spores are 

 developed under the leaves in small 

 clusters of variable form. Sometimes 

 they are long and narrow, and sometimes 

 round or bean-shaped. In one beautiful 

 fern called the maiden-hair, the stalk of 

 which is black and slender, the spores 

 are placed under the very edges of the 

 Tree-fern. leaves which seem to be folded over to 



cover them. In the so-called flowering 



fern, the spores are arranged in a kind of stem, but its re- 

 semblance to a flowering plant is only apparent, and not real. 



Our British ferns are all plants of moderate size, but in hot 

 countries they grow to a great height, and resemble the palms, 

 both becanse their stem grows in length without increasing in 

 breadth, and because they are likewise surmounted with a 

 crown of large leaves. 



FAMILY OF MOSSES. 



The mosses, like the ferns, resemble other plants in external 

 appearance ; they are green, and have a woody stalk, one might 

 say, like those of very small trees. The spores of mosses are not 

 developed under the leaves, as in ferns, but in special and very 

 elegant organs. When we look at mosses at the season that 

 they fructify, we notice straight slender filaments projecting 



