CONCERNING NOMENCLATURE. 
N the scheme of the vegetable kingdom, 
ferns are accorded a place below the 
flowering plants. With the Fern-Allies 
—the club-mosses, quillworts and scour- 
ing rushes—they form the highest group 
of the so-called flowerless plants. On 
the one hand they are related to such 
simple flowering plants as the pines, 
palms, sedges and grasses, and on the 
other to the mosses and liverworts. 
Among themselves they differ widely, and several 
natural groups may be recognised. Formerly these 
groups were all included in the single order F/ices ; but 
the modern and more scientific view makes them separate 
orders. One of the chief points of difference between 
them is found in the formation of the sporangia. In all 
but the most primitive, there is a ring of stronger cells 
extending around each sporange, which in most species 
bursts at maturity, scattering the spores. The position 
of this ring is of muchimportance in placing the genera 
in the proper orders. There are five of these orders 
represented in our fern-flora, four of which are relatively 
insignificant. Their principal characteristics and the 
tribes and genera they contain may be arranged in a 
series, from simple to complex, as follows. The relative 
size of the spore-cases are shown in the illustrations. 
