684 Handbook of Nature-Study 



FLOWERLESS-PLANT STUDY 



FERNS 



v^" ANY interesting things about ferns may be 

 taught to the young child, but the more care- 

 ful study of these plants is better adapted to 

 the pupils in the higher grades, and is one ot 

 the wide-open doors that leads directly from 

 nature-study to systematic science. While 

 the pupils are studying the different forms in 

 which ferns bear their fruit, they can make 

 collections of all the ferns of the locality. 

 Since ferns are easily pressed and are beauti- 

 ful objects when mounted on white paper, the 

 making of a fern herbarium is a delightful pastime ; or leaf-prints may be 

 made which give beautiful results (see page 734) ;but, better perhaps, than 

 either collections or prints, are pencil or water-color drawings with details 

 of the fruiting organs enlarged. Such a portfolio is not only a thing of 

 beauty but the close observation needed for drawing brings much 

 knowledge to the artist. 



References. — Our Ferns in Their Haunts, W. N. Clute, (of greatest 

 value to teachers because it gives much of fern literature); How to 

 Know the Ferns, Parsons; Ferns, Waters; New England Ferns, East- 



THE CHRISTMAS FERN 

 Teacher's Story 



"No shivering frond that shuns the blast sways on its slender chaffy stem; 

 Full veined and lusty green it stands, of all the wintry woods the gem. " 



— W. N. Clute. 



The rootstock of the fern is an humble example of "rising on stepping 

 stones of our dead selves," this being almost literally true of the tree-ferns. 

 The rootstock which is a stem and not a root — has, like other stems, a 

 growing tip from which, each year, it sends up into the world several 

 beautiful green fronds, and numerous rootlets down into the earth. 

 These graceful fronds rejoice the world and our eyes for the summer, and 

 make glad the one who, in winter, loves to wander often in the woods to 

 inquire after the welfare of his many friends during their period of sleeping 

 and waking. These fronds, after giving their message of winter cheer, 

 and after the following summer has made the whole woodland green and 

 the young fronds are growing thriftily from the tip of the rootstock, die 

 down, and in midsummer we can find the old fronds lying sere and brown, 

 with broken stipes, just back of the new fern clump; if we examine the 

 rootstock we can detect behind them, remains of the stems of the fronds of 

 year before last ; and still farther behind we may trace all the stems of 

 fronds which gladdened the world three years ago. Thus we learn that 



