258 UNDER THE OPEN SKY 



chiefly plain, tough specimens whose fronds 

 (as fern leaves are called) hug the ground 

 rather closely, have learned to stand the cold 

 of winter. It is a patch of this kind, called 

 the Christmas fern, that I have just found. 

 Some of the fronds are brown and dead, 

 but many, in the sheltered places, are al- 

 most as green as in the summer. 



To many people the idea of a plant with- 

 out seeds is a strange one, but this is only 

 half of the strangeness. No fern in the 

 ordinary course of events has a fern for a 

 parent, and equally strangely no fern, as 

 events ordinarily happen, has a fern for its 

 child. But each fern has had a fern for its 

 grandfather and will in turn have a fern for 

 its grandchild. 



THE FERN'S PATERNITY 



When a fern has come to maturity, as 

 will be readily remembered by any one who 

 ever picks these exquisitely graceful plants, 

 brown spots appear somewhere about it, 

 commonly on the under side of the fronds. 

 From these spots, at full ripeness, a brown 



