PERNS OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



rib. The mode of veining, in^ different families of Fenis, 

 affords a characteristic distinction, to which more or 

 less importance is attached by different botanists. It is 

 on some spot among these veins that the capsules or seed- 

 vessels are placed ; and that particular point is termed 

 the receptacle, its position with regard to the veins afford- 

 ing a good means of determining genera and species. 



Every one who has gathered, from wall or hedgebank, 

 during autumn, any of our native Ferns, has seen on the 

 back, or more rarely on the margin, a number of powdery 

 patches, often of a deep rich rust-brown colour, or occa- 

 sionally, as in the Common Polypody, bright orange. 

 They are sometimes circular, as in this Polypody j or 

 they lie along the leaf in oblong patches, between the 

 midrib and the margin, as in the 

 Hart's-tongue ; or they run toge- 

 ther into a mass, and cover the 

 whole back of the frond, as in the 

 fern called the WaU-rue ; or they 

 form a ridge along the edge of 

 the leaf, as in the Maiden-hair. 

 More rarely they cluster closely, 

 tUl all the segments of the leaf arq 

 contracted and curled up round 

 the masses of fructification, and 

 then they have an altogether dif- 

 ferent appearance, and resemble a 

 kind of inflorescence. Our beau- 

 tiful tall plant, called Flowering 

 Fern, not unfrequent in moist 

 ADDEtt's-TONGUE. woods, aud thc little Adder's- 



