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BRITISH FERNS 



Fig. 47. Athyriiim filix-famina (pinna). 



ATHYRIUM FILIX-FCEMINA (The Lady Fern) 

 (Plate VIII) 



This species, which ranks among the most beautiful of our native 

 ones, was named by the old botanists long before the actual life 

 history of the Ferns had been worked out and their peculiar 

 method of reproduction ascertained. The botanical name given is 

 a mixture of Greek and Latin, of which the popular name of Lady 

 Fern, a polite equivalent of the Female Fern, is a true translation. 

 Obviously the species was so christened owing to its greater delicacy 

 of make and cutting as contrasted with its coarser companion, 

 Lastrea (Nephrodium) filix-mas, the Male Fern, which, again, is a 

 correct translation, but which, again, is a misnomer, since both 

 species reproduce themselves on the ordinary lines as set forth in 

 our chapter on the Life History of the Ferns, and as Ferns proper 

 are not practically of any sex at all. Nature, however, curiously 

 enough, has appeared to sympathize with the old botanists' idea 

 of the lady-like character of this species by endowing it with the 

 faculty of inventing and donning innumerable fashions, many 

 of extra beauty, and many of as bizarre, quaint, and eccentric 

 types as the most gifted costumiere could devise in the way of laces, 



