^INTRODUCTION> 



In the entire vegetable world there are probably no forms of 

 growth that attract more general notice than the Ferns. Delicate 

 in foliage, they are sought for cultivation in conservatories and 

 Wardian-cases, and when dried and pressed add to the culture of 

 many a domestic circle by serving as household decorations. They 

 furnish to botanists a broad and inviting field for investigation, 

 and he who examines their more minute structure with the micro- 

 scope will find deeper and still more mysterious relations than 

 those revealed to the unaided eye. Ferns thus appeal to the 

 scientific element of man's nature as well as to the aesthetic, and 

 while they highly gratify the taste, they furnish food for the in- 

 tellect in a like degree. 



In olden time the obscure fructification of the common brake 

 led to many superstitious ideas among, the common people and 

 the older poets have woven these popular notions into our litera- 

 ture. Butler tells in Hudibras of bugbears so often created by 

 mankind : 



" That spring like fern, that infant weed. 

 Equivocally without seed. 

 And have no possible foundation 

 But merely in th' imagination." 



Shakespeare only reflects a prevalent belief of his time when 

 he says : 



"We have the receipt of fern seed ; we walk invisible." 



Others allude to the falling of the seed on the anniver- 

 sary night of the birth of the 'loved disciple.' The old simplers 

 with their lively imagination were impressed by the fancied 

 resemblances of some parts of fern growth to various organs of 

 the human 'body, and introduced them into their system of spe- 

 cifics. Traces of their influence still remain in the names of some 

 of our common ferns as spleenwort and maidenhair. 



To form a correct understanding of ferns we must study the 

 ferns themselves as well as the text-book, as it is only by direct 

 contact with nature that we gain definite and satisfactory informa- 



