Following the arrangement adopted by Professor Bentley in 

 liis excellent " Manual of Botany," we find that ferns are 

 included among the Cryptogamia, or plants which form one of 

 the sub-kingdoms into which the great vegetable kingdom is 

 divided, and which bear no flowers, but are propagated by 

 spores, or organs that perform the same ftinctions in this sub- 

 kingdom of flowerless plants that buds and seeds perform for 

 the higher orders of flowering plants that are classed under the 

 opposite sub-kingdom Phanerogatrda, or plants which show 

 their flowers. They are also said to be acotyledonous, because 

 they are developed from spores instead of seeds, in which no 

 distinct organs of propagation can be traced, and they are 

 ac/rogenous inasmuch as they are plants possessing distinguish- 

 able stems and leaves which have stomata, or pores on the sur- 

 face. The place that ferns hold in the vegetable kingdom may 

 therefore be traced thus : — ^Vegetable Kingdom. — 8vh-King- 

 dom 2. Cbyptogamia. — Olass, Acotyledones. — Sub-Class 1. 

 AcEOGEN^. — Family, Filices, or Febns. 



The principal component parts of ferns, in common with 

 other plants, are the roots, the stem, and the leaves or fronds ; 

 but singularly enough, in the majority of our British ferns, the 

 stem, technically called the rhizome, from which the leaves and 

 roots spring, is concealed in the ground. In large tree-ferns 

 that grow so luxuriantly in tropical countries, the rhizome 

 rears itself above the ground for some feet, and resembles the 

 gnarled trunk of a pollard ash or willow. The real roots 

 spring from the under surface of the rhizome, and resemble 

 rough black fibres in their general appearance ; the leaves spring 

 upwards from its upper surface, and by their difierent charac- 

 ters often serve to distinguish the germs, species, and vaHety 

 of the plant. 



When the rhizome extends horizontally below the surface of 

 the ground, it is called a creeping rhizome, but when it rises 

 above it, and has a rough exterior covered with broad, shaggy 

 scales, it is termed a tufted rhizome. The frond is the main 

 stem of the fern, with all the lateral branches and leaflets 

 belonging to it ; the term includes the whole leaf from its 

 junction with the rhizome to its other extremity. The racMs 

 is the main stem of the frond from the point at which the 

 lateral branches begin to branch out from it as far as the 

 extremity ; the part that is destitute of branches between this 

 point and the rhizome is sometimes distinguished as the stipes. 

 The frond is also sometimes ("ivided into the blade and the 



