THE OSMUNDAS. 



MONO ferns as among flowering plants, there 

 are certain species that so persistently force 

 themselves upon our attention as to make it 

 [almost impossible not to know them. The 

 members of the Osmunda family belong to 

 this class. From the time their stout woolly 

 crosiers peep from the ground in spring until 

 their pinnae are mingling with the falling leaves of au- 

 tumn, they are among the most conspicuous of our 

 native species. In everything the family runs to ex- 

 tremes. Their rootstocks are the largest, their crosiers 

 the woolliest, their fronds the tallest and their fruit the 

 earliest. They are also as common as conspicuous. 

 Every farmer and wanderer countryward is familiar 

 with their graceful forms, although he may have no 

 other name for them than " brakes/' 



The Cinnamon Fern. 



The best known of the Osmundas is doubtless the 

 cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea). It grows in 

 nearly every piece of boggy ground in the Eastern States, 

 neighbouring with the coarse herbage of the wild helle- 

 bore and skunk's cabbage, but is at its best in shaded 

 swamps and wet open woodlands where it forms jungles of 

 almost tropical luxuriance. Frequently it takes large 



