THE FERN ALLIES. 



INCE ferns are members of 

 the vegetable kingdom, all 

 plants are more or less 

 allied to them, but the term Fern Allies, 

 as commonly understood, has a much 

 more restricted meaning. As regarded 

 by botanists, the fern allies are plants 

 belonging to certain families included in 

 one of the great natural groups of the 

 flowerless plants. The fern allies are 

 quite unlike flou'ering plants in appear- 

 ance and have little more resemblance to 

 their allies, the ferns ; but their structure 

 and manner of fruiting show 

 them to be closely related. 



Botanists long ago divided the 

 vegetable kingdom into two 

 sub-kingdoms which they nam.ed 

 respectively the Phanerogamia, 

 or Flowering Plants, and the 

 Cryptogam ia, or Flowerless 

 Plants. In this second division 



