42 FERXS IN THEIR HOMES AND OURS. 



atic arrangement of the ferns, and description of 

 their species, and are valuable for our purpose so 

 far as they deal with American ones. For the 

 structure or morphology of ferns we can confine 

 ourselves to works written or translated into lan- 

 guages wdiich all can read. Our school and college 

 botanies contain but a small amount of information 

 about ferns. To learn their structure and devel- 

 opment we must refer to more elaborate treatises, 

 especially to the writings of foreign authors ; and 

 we shall do well to study the development of other 

 plants also, that we may have correct ideas of the 

 analogies of ferns with the rest of the vegetable 

 world. 



Among these books of wider range is the ad- 

 mirable Text-Book of Structural and Physio- 

 logical Botany, by Otto W. Thome, translated 

 by A. W. Bennett ; illustrated by 600 cuts, and map. 

 The American edition is published by John Wiley 

 and Sons, New York, 1877. The ideas in the book 

 are modern, and more space in proportion to its 

 size is given to the Cryptogams than in almost any 

 treatise on the subject. This book costs ^2.50, 

 and is intended as a text-book for schools. 



A General System of Botany, by Le Maout 

 and Decaisne, translated by ]\Irs. Hooker, London, 

 1873, 1066 pp. 4to, may also be mentioned here. 

 This valuable reference-book devotes nearly 100 

 pages to the Cryptogams, and the subject is illus- 



