OUR, NUTIYE FERNS. 



CHAPTER I. 



HAUNTS, HABITS, AND DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 



Our outward life requires them not, — 



Tlien wherefore had they birth? 

 To minister delight to man, 



To beautify the earth, 



— Mary Howitt. 



I. General Characters. — Our native ferns comprise plarits 

 varying in height from less than an inch to six or seven feet, or 

 even more. Some are stout and fleshy, others are delicate and 

 even filmy ; but most are herbaceous, resembling ordinary flower- 

 ing plants in the texture of their foliage. While most would be 

 recognized as fertis by even a novice, a few differ so widely from 

 the ordinary typical forms that to an unskilled observer they would 

 scarcely be considered as bearing any resemblance to ferns what- 

 ever. The fronds of one of our Florida species resemble narrow 

 blades of grass, and the fertile spikes of another from New Jersey 

 might be mistaken for a diminutive species of sedge. A third from 

 Alabama would, perhaps, be called a moss by the inexperienced, 

 while a fourth, frequently found in New England, has a climbing 

 stem and broad, palmated leaves. 



When we add to these peculiar forms of our own country those 

 of foreign lands, and include the immense tree-ferns of tropical re- 

 gions, we find our early conception of a fern inadequate to cover this 

 diversity of forms. Without attempting an accurate definition of 

 a fern, let it be regarded for present purposes as a flowerless 

 plant, producing spores instead of seeds, possessing more or less 

 woody tissue, and having its leaves coiled 4n the bud from apex 

 to base. After the necessary study of the structure of some of 

 our common ferns, we will be able to comprehend the more tech- 

 nical definition found later in the work. 



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