INTRODUCTION. 



IN the entire vegetable world there are probably no forms of 

 growth that attract more general notice than the Ferns. Deli- 

 cate in foliage, they are sought for cultivation in conservatories 

 and Wardian cases, and when dried and pressed add to the 

 culture of many a domestic circle by serving as household deco- 

 rations. They furnish to botanists a broad and inviting field 

 for investigation, and he who examines their more minute struc- 

 ture with the microscope will find deeper and still more myste- 

 rious relations than those revealed to the unaided eye. Ferns 

 thus appeal to the scientific element of man's nature as well as 

 to the aesthetic, and while they highly gratify the taste, they 

 furnish food for the intellect in a like degree. 



The Fern allies have also played their appointed part in the 

 domestic and decorative economy of this and other generations. 

 The scouring-rushes served our ancestors for keeping white their 

 floors and wooden-ware in the days when carpets were a luxury. 

 The trailing stems of various species of Lycopodium have long 

 been valued for holiday decorations ; while their burning spores 

 have flashed in triumphal processions, and have added their 

 glow to the fervor of political campaigns. 



In olden time the obscure fructification of the common brake 

 led to many superstitious ideas among the common people, and 

 the older poets have woven these popular notions into our litera- 

 ture. Butler tells in Hudibras of bugbears so often created by 

 mankind : 



" That spring like fern, that infant weed, 

 Equivocally without seed, 

 And have no possible foundation 

 But merely in th' imagination." 



