INTRODUCTION. 



FerisSj or, as they are usually termed, Filices, are the highest 

 division of cryptogamic botany. They are leafy plants, the 

 leaflets, or fronds, rising from a rhizoma, this rhizoma creeping 

 upon, or below, the surface of the ground, or rising upwards 

 into the air. 



In the Linneean system. Ferns are the division Filices, of the 

 twenty-fourth class, termed Cryptogamia. They are in the 

 second class of "Lindley's Natural System," and are called 

 Acrogens, the division being Filicales. There are no less than 

 one hundred and ninety-two genera, and two thousand and forty 

 species, about one half of which are now cultivated in Great 

 Britain. 



Ferns, by their exquisite beauty, great variety, and singularity 

 of the reproductive organs, deservedly rank high amongst cul- 

 tivated plants. Among them may be found innumerable diversity 

 of form, size, and habit of growth; they are to be met with 

 in almost all parts of the globe, but most abundantly in the 

 tropical regions. Some species grow to the height of forty or 

 fifty feet, bearing their elegant fronds in the most graceful 

 attitudes, those of the Norfolk Island Tree Fern, the Dick- 

 sonia Antarctica, frequently measure twenty feet, while on the 

 other hand those of the diminutive Hymenophyllum Tunbrid- 

 gense — a British example, scarcely exceed an inch; others, as 

 the Lygodium tribe, twine round the nearest support in fan- 

 tastic wreaths in every direction. Some varieties owe their chief 

 beauty to the farinose powder covering the under side of the 

 fronds, sometimes of a rich golden hue, in others of a silvery 

 whiteness. 



As decorative plants in our hothouses and conservatories. Ferns 

 stand unrivalled. True they do not possess the gorgeous col- 

 our, which at one period or other of their growth, forms the 

 chief glory of most other plants which we so diligently culti- 

 vate; but, notwithstanding this, the evergreen species of Ferns 

 maintain an unfailing interest; young fronds, with their delicate 



