16 THE FERNS AND 



genera, and particularly by those who may be termed horticultural 

 botanists, ■who are apt to look upon external characters as of para- 

 mount importance, and who ignore the natural relationships which 

 ought to underlie every rational classification. 



Groups of genera agreeing in the general arrangement of their 

 organs of fructification are united together into THbes, and these 

 again into Orders. These are further united into Groups, Coliorts, 

 or Classes, which are still larger and more comprehensive assemblages. 

 Even in the construction of these larger assemblages, botanists 

 exercise very much their individual judgment, but there is of 

 course a continually increasing consensus of opinion as new discoveries 

 are made, and the general stock of knowledge thus increased. 



The classification I have adopted in this work is founded on that 

 used in Le Maout and Decaisne's "Systematic Botany," but th& 

 subdivision of the genera of the Ferns is more in accordance with 

 that of the " Synopsis Filicum." 



The plants treated of here belong to the great group of flowerless 

 plants known as Vascular Cryptogams ; that is to say, they differ 

 from all other flowerless plants such as Mosses, Fungi, Lichens, 

 Seaweeds, &c., by having woody vessels (or — more correctly — closed 

 fibro-vascular bundles) in their stems, and by possessing true roots. 

 In their growth they all exhibit an alternation of a sexual with an 

 asexual generation, the plant produced from the spore (the_;woi/jaZZMs) 

 being small and short-lived, and bearing true sexual organs. From 

 the mutual interaction of these, a second plant is produced, which 

 bears a distinct stem and leaves, grows usually for several years and 

 produces a constant succession of spores. 



Six orders of these Vascular Cryptogams are represented in New 

 Zealand, and their most distinctive characters are here given in 

 detail, their further subdivisions being specified in Chap. III. 



Order I. — Filices (or Ferns). The distinctive characters of the true 

 ferns are well marked, so that there is not much diflS.culty in recog- 

 nizing them. The leaves or fronds are usually well developed, 

 and expand in a circinate manner, being coiled up when young in 

 the form of a crozier ; thety bear the spores either on their 

 under-surface or on their edge. The sporangia or spore-capsules 

 are collected into groups called sori, which are placed in certain 

 relations to the veins, and are differently formed and situated in 



