58 AUSTRALIAN BOTANY. 



without being noticed. Very often a trickling stream of 

 water from some adjacent spring winds through the gully; 

 while overhead the dense foliage of the large trees is 

 interlaced with innumerable bright - flowering creepers, 

 forming a canopy of vegetation. 



Collecting fern specimens has long been a favourite 

 pursuit with people of all classes. By a simple process, 

 described in p. 70, they can be made to retain their 

 beauty of shape when dried. A fernery, or collection of 

 living ferns, is considered almost indispensable in a public 

 or private garden of any pretensions. From the facility 

 with which fern leaves can be obtained in nearly all parts 

 of Australia, there should be no difficulty in procuring 

 them for the purpose of examination. 



Fern leaves are called fronds. When young, before they 

 spread, they are rolled up on the stem in a crozier-shaped 

 'bud. On the leaves are generally found the peculiar organs, 

 termed spores, contained within a sorus, 1 which supply the 

 place of seed-vessels, and which are arranged irregularly 

 along the leaf; either on the margin along its venation 

 (system of veins) at the back, or along its lower surface. 

 Fern stems are of different kinds, underground or aerial, 

 rhizomes {creeping stems growing partly wide7'ground) being 

 common in some species. When matured, the stems of 

 many large tree ferns are hollow (see Plate II. fig. 3, 

 p. 20), and their broad green fronds often cap the stem 

 at a height of forty feet and upwards. On these stems — 

 naturally naked, and often having a blackened, charred 

 appearance — epiphytal ferns frequently flourish. Epiphytal 

 signifies ' growing upon another plant.' It is distinguished 



1 Sorus (plural sort), seed patch or cluster cf sporangia, thecae, etc. 



