*45 



non-arborescent ferns slowly creep beneath, or at the level 

 of the soil. No annual ring of wood is formed in a Tree 

 Fern stem, but it is strengthened in most species by an 

 annual contribution of the root fibres descending to the 

 soil from the new fronds. 



Outside these two main differences between fronds and 

 leaves there is a third, consisting in their mode of develop- 

 ment. With a few unimportant exceptions, all fern fronds 

 arise from the crown in the form of a compactly curled 

 ball, which, as the stalk lengthens, unrolls, and, as it does 

 so, shows that the sub-divisions, if there be any, are also 

 rolled up in the same way, so that the eventual formation 

 of a flat frond is brought about by a continued process of 

 uncurling, expansion, and flattening. Take any of the 

 fern-like flowering plants aforesaid, and we find no such 

 thing as this ; the young leaves when they appear are 

 merely folded lengthwise in the bud, or at the growing tip 

 of the plant, and eventually develop by simple expansion. 

 We have here, consequently, one infallible sign by which 

 a fern can be discriminated from merely fern-like flower- 

 ing plants, and a frond from a leaf. Apart from these 

 peculiarities fronds also appear to be endowed with a far 

 greater capacity of sub-division and variation than leaves 

 proper. Even the finest forms of decorative asparagus 

 {A. plumosus, etc.) now so familiar as decorative plants, 

 and popularly, though erroneously, termed Asparagus 

 Ferns, delicate as is their foliage, do not go nearly so far 

 as some of our best British Shield Ferns and Lady Ferns, 

 in what is known as decomposite cutting, i.e. repeated 

 sub-division, in which the frond is divided to the fifth 

 degree, quinquepinnate, to which no known leaf even 

 remotely approaches. 



Variation of Leaves. 



Finally, while both leaves and fronds vary considerably 

 in form, and are subject to considerable vagaries in the 

 sporting way, as we may see in crotons, and even in 



