FERNS OP GREAT BRITAIN, 3 



even an image of death ; its green is so living, its form 

 so perfect, that we could fancy it had just been gathered 

 in all its pride of beauty from shadowy woodland or 

 rocky glen. 



A popular description of a fern might be, " A large 

 leaf or branch of leaves, bearing no flowers." Yet that 

 leaf-like spray differs from a leaf in several particulars of 

 structure ; the most marked of which is, that it repre- 

 sents the leaf and fruit conjoined, bearing its fructifi- 

 cation, in most cases, on its under surface. The word 

 frond, therefore, applied to the green expansion of a 

 fern, though it originated in the idea that the leaf of a 

 fern was composed of a branch and a leaf, is not alto- 

 gether an unnecessary distinction. The frond consists 

 of two parts ; the leafy portion and the stalk. The 

 stalk is often called the rachis, but, strictly speaking, it 

 is composed of two parts. That part which bears the 

 green leaf is the rachis ; and the lower portion of the 

 stalk, destitute of the green expansion, is the stipes. 

 When the frond is so divided, that, besides the principal 

 stalk, another set of stalks runs through the green di- 

 visions, each of these last is a secondary rachis ; the term 

 primary rachis referring to the main stalk. 



The lower part of the stalk, the stipes, is in some of 

 our ferns naked ; but it is more often beset with chaffy 

 scales, usually thin, and frequently of a pale brown 

 colour. Sometimes these are few in number, and found 

 only at the base ; but occasionally they are continued 

 along the rachis, becoming smaller as they are higher on 

 the stalks. The young fronds of several of the large 

 and common ferns may be seen, in May, looking very 



