CHAPTER XI, 



PTERIS, Linnce 



us. 



(Pter'-is.) 



Bracken or Brake. 



HE genus Pterls (the old Greek name for a Fern, used by 

 Dioscorides, and derived from 'pteron, a feather, probably in 

 allusion to the shape of the fronds) is large and cosmopolitan, 

 comprising, besides the hardy British species P. aquilma and 

 its varieties, numerous stove and greenhouse exotic species 

 exhibiting very extensive variation as regards size, texture, and cutting of the 

 fronds, as well as modes of growth, and including plants of almost every 

 kind of division and venation. 



Though there are no species of Fteris with entire (undivided) fronds 

 known, those with fronds simply pinnate (only once divided to the midrib), 

 and those with the lower leaflets slightly pinnate below, with a long, narrow 

 terminal point, are abundant and show great variation in the dimensions and 

 texture of their foliage. The most striking, as also some of the best-known 

 species belonging to these groups, are P. cretica^ P. long/folia, and P. serrulata, 

 all of which are of medium dimensions only. Yet in P. moluccana and 

 P. litobrochloides we have two gigantic-growing plants with foliage of the same 

 description. There are also species with fronds twice or three times divided 

 to the rachis, such as P. quadriaurita and P. trenmla ; the^e are strong- 

 growing kinds forming a striking -contrast with the comparatively small 

 plants belonging to the Doryopteris section, in which the fronds are of very 



