WAYSIDE WEEDS. §03 



earth, are so constantly before us that we almost 

 forget that each and all are miracles, We can 

 scarcely realize that every unfolding of a blossom, 

 every springing into growth and beauty of the tiny 

 seed,, and microscopic spore, is a.s much an act of 

 creation as that which took place when 



" The morning stars sang together." 



Although, for the most part, the fern fiTictifi* 

 pation or spore development is upon the back or 

 margins of the frond, it is not invariably so ] in one 

 or two instances, even in Britain, the spore collect 

 tions are concentrated, as in the Osmunday or Royal 

 Fern, pr, as it is often and erroneously called, Flowere 

 ing Fern. In the case of this truly splendid fern, 

 the tallest of our British natives of the tribe, the 

 sori capsules are so thickly clustered at the ex- 

 tremity of the frond, aa quite to obliterate its leafy 

 character, forming to it a brown branched apex, 

 which some stretch of imagination might convert 

 into masses of unopened flower buds. Another, 

 rather a relative of the ferns than a fern itself, the 

 curious-looking moonwort (Fig, 116), has a barren 

 frond, that is, one free from fructification, and, 

 springing as it were from it (Fig. 116), a branched 

 fertile panicle of spore capsules. These capsules 

 are without elastic ring. If you chance to know 

 or to find the adder's-tongue in your bundle, you 

 will have a plant closely related to the moonwort. 



