148 CERATOPTERIS THALICTRCIDES,—THE HORNED FERN. 
surface. Besides this, buds appear in the angles of the divisions 
of the frond, and, falling at maturity, make distinct plants. 
In the uniform tint of green and heavy divisions of the frond, 
there is absent the usual beauty of ferns. But Whittier tells us 
that— 
“Art’s perfect forms no moral need, 
And beauty is its own excuse; 
But for the dull and flowerless weed 
Some healing virtue still must plead, 
And the rough ore must find its honors in its use.” 
His lines are especially applicable to this “dull weed,” which 
has been put to more honorable use than most of its sister ferns. 
Gaudichaud, a distinguished botanist, who edited the botany of 
d 
Captain Freycinet’s voyage of the “Uranie” and “ Physician” in 
a French expedition round the world in 1810, notes that it is 
regarded as a choice salad by the inhabitants along the river 
Argana; and Sir W. J. Hooker states that, “in the Indian Archi- 
pelago, this fern is boiled and eaten by the poor as a vegetable.” 
It grows in shallow ponds or in wet, marshy places, often cover- 
ing the whole surface with its green fronds, 
EXPLANATIONS OF THE PLATE.—1. Growing plant showing (ta) perfectly developed barren 
frond, (12) the growing frond and stipes of older ones. 2. An undivided segment of the 
frond showing, (2a) enlarged, its venation, 3. An enlarged drawing of a finely-divided 
pinnule. 
