JOURNAL 
The New York Botanical Garden 
Vo..X. April, 1909, No. 112. 
THE FERN COLLECTIONS OF THE NEW YORK 
BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
erns to be found in practically every department of the 
oo collections. They have their a jee in 
the system tions, but are found a 
bee in the eee pent in “ living collections, 
and to some extent in the economic collections. 
The, economic uses to which ferns are put, to take them up in 
an order inverse to that just noted, may almost be counted on 
the fingers of one’s hand. few species are used as food in 
various parts of the world, particularly the leaves of certain suc- 
culent kinds. Preridium aquilinum, a cosmopolitan species, is one 
of these. The young, unrolling leaves are prepared and eaten like 
asparagus. A few other kinds have medicinal uses. The rhi- 
zomes of the male-fern, Dryopteris Filix-mas, are so used. Speci- 
mens of this fern may be seen in the drug collection and in the 
economic garden. One of the lycopods, Lycopodium clavatum, is 
also used as a drug. A further use for lycopods is found for the 
copious eg of certain species which are used in some kinds 
of fire s. In the south side of the middle case of the fiber 
eee may be seen a bundle of the slender leaf-stalks of a 
Javan species of Dicranopteris, together with brown fibers taken 
from the leaf-stalks, and various articles of native manufacture 
in which these are used. The fibrous, black root-masses of cer- 
tain of the osmundas and some tree-ferns are extensively used, 
sometimes under the misnotner ‘“‘ peat,”' for the growing of orchids 
and other epiphytic plants. 
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