The Sporing of the Fern 267 
are but seven species in all, and their largest and 
most important member is barely two feet tall, 
while sixty-five species of the Leptosporangiateze 
are found north of the southern boundary of Vir- 
ginia, and even in Canadian forest-clearings some 
of them grow breast-high. 
As we go southward the Leptosporangiatez in- 
crease in number and in size, till in tropical woods 
the tall shafts of the tree-ferns rise like the columns 
of a great cathedral and the long fronds curve 
upward from their tops like springing gothic 
arches. One who has seen these truly ‘‘ cathedral 
woods’’ is quite disabused of the prevalent but 
mistaken notion that the fern family as a whole 
has ‘‘ fallen on evil days’’ (Fig. 74). 
Fic. 74.—Spores of a club-moss (Lycopodium complanatum). 
(Much magnified.) 
