8 HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 



dandelions were plucked to be made into floral chains, and 

 those which yielded the buttercups, the roses, and various 

 others for the rural bouquet, produced, besides their flowers 

 those brilliantly coloured parts which the tiny fingers chiefly 

 desired to gather other parts, mostly green, and in which 

 the same intuitive perception has learned to recognize the 

 leaves. These " organs/' as they are called the leaves and 

 the flowers are the two most conspicuous parts of the 

 majority of plants. 



Popularly speaking, a Peru may be said to be a plant 

 which never bears flowers, but leaves only ; and these leaves 

 are greatly varied, and very elegant in form. But some one 

 will say, How can I tell a Pern, which never bears flowers, from 

 some other plant which does bear flowers, but from which 

 they are temporarily absent ? A little patience, and a little 

 attentive study, will overcome this seeming, and to the 

 beginner real, difficulty. You must search for what seems 

 to be a full-grown plant. Examine the under surface of its 

 leaves, and you will see brown dusty-looking patches, round 

 or elongated or in lines, scattered here and there, and 

 generally arranged with much regularity. These patches are 

 vast accumulations of the minute seeds so minute as to be 

 fabulously invisible from which young fern-plants would 

 be produced. 



