698 Handbook of Nature-Study 



nificent ostrich feathers, has stiff, little stalks of fruiting fronds very 

 unlike the magnificent sterile fronds. The sensitive fern, which grows in 

 damp meadows and along roadsides, also has contracted fruiting fronds. 

 If you find any of these, compare carefully the fruiting with the sterile 

 fronds, and note in each case the resemblance in branching and in pinnules 

 and also the shape of the openings through which the spores are sifted out. 



6. Gather and press specimens of as many ferns in the fruiting stage 

 as you can find, taking both sterile and fruiting fronds in those species 

 which have this specialization. 



7. Read in the geologies about the ferns which helped to make our 

 coal beds. 



Supplementary reading. — The Story of a Fern ; First Studies of Plant 

 Life, Atkinson; The Petrified Fern, M. L. B. Branch. 



The bulb-bearing bladder fern. This beautiful fern clothes the banks of damp 



ravines. It has, in addition to fruiting organs, buds on 



the stem, which tatze root. 



Photo by Verne Morton. 



''Nature made ferns for pure leaves to see what she could do in that line." — Thoreau 



