a wing) points to the " wing "-like form of the leaves, and the 

 specific name aquiUna {cquila, an eagle) is due to the " spread- 

 eagle " (or "oak-tree" as others think it), which appears when 

 the stalk is cut across. 



This fern is found througlaout the British Isles, extending as far 

 north as Shetland and climbing to some 2,000 feet in the 

 Highlands of Scotland. Outside the British Isles also it has a very 

 wide range. Though somewhat coarse in texture, the Bracken is 

 really a magnificent plant, usually reaching a height of some three 

 feet on open moors or heaths, but easily attaining six feet in woods 

 and sheltered places. Certain specimens growing against a wall at 

 Ham Common Gate, in Richmond Park, once reached a height of 

 8ft. 7iu. ; but 10 or even 12 feet may be looked upon as the limit of 

 its stature. 



What is measured is only the leaf-stalk (sometimes called the 

 rachis). It is not the stem, which grows horizontally under- 

 ground, quite out of sight, its distance below the surface being 

 usually measured in feet. We have known those who, wishing to 

 cultivate this fern, have planted the leaf-stalk, hoping therefrom to 

 obtain a good display of liracken in the near future — an experiment 

 as hopeless as planting an oak-leaf to obtain an oak. Should any 

 one wish to ornament a corner of the garden by means of a clump 

 of Bracken, a piece of the rhizome (or underground stem) must be 

 procured — or better, tiny plants that have developed from spores on 

 some such spot as a patch of charcoal and earth, where fir-branches 

 have been burnt in Esher Woods. I can say from experience how 

 fine a bed of Bracken some 3fc. or 4ft. high may be obtained in 

 three or four years from tiny plants only an inch or two in stature. 



On cutting a section of the rhizome we find the presence of a 

 vascular system. This is extremely important. It appears first in 

 the ferns ; and its appearance points to as important a stage in the 

 evolution of the plant as the appearance of the backbone does in 

 that of the animal. The vascular system is arranged on a principle 

 somewhat difl'erent from that of an ordinary fiowering-plant — the 

 bundles are concentric, the wood being surrounded by the bast. 

 Each bundle, in fact, is something like the complete fibro-vascular 

 system of a dicotyledonous flowering-plant, and the origin of the 

 arrangement is explained in some such way. So there is no very 

 essential difference between the two. In older parts the stem is 

 strengthened by hard dark tissue, called schlerenchyma. The roots 

 are small wiry fibres, insignificant in section, and of an ordinary 

 type, very similar to that of the higher plants. Though sometimes 

 called a " frond " [frons, a leaf) — quite unnecessarily — the leaf is a 

 true leaf of quite the usual type, as a section soon shows. So, as a 

 matter of fact, the vegetative arrangements of the Bracken are not 

 greatly different from those of one of the higher plants. 



In a flowering-plant the spores, which form the starting-point of 

 a new plant, are still developed on special parts of the shoots — 



