NOTES FOR THE BEGINNER. 



I. — WHAT A FERN IS. 



WHEN one comes to inquire of his plant-loving friends, he is 

 surprised to find how very few of them know anything 

 about ferns. The great majority of those who are well 

 acquainted with the flowering plants give up at once when they 

 come to these. The fact that ferns can reproduce their kind, with- 

 out the aid of anything in the visible semblance of a flower, is al- 

 most as much of a mystery to the present generation as it was to 

 the ancients, and the study of this most beautiful group of plants 

 is neglected because of the difficulties supposed to be connected 

 with it. But the difficulties are more apparent than real. The 

 writer knows of one young man who identified sixteen species of 

 his vicinity the first season, with but one book to assist him, and 

 without previous botanical knowledge. 



In these papers I shall try to clear up some of the obstacles 

 that present themselves to the beginner in the study of ferns. And 

 first let us define what a fern is. So many things that are not 

 ferns are often believed to be — such as the finely divided foliage of 

 the yarrow and various other plants— and so many true ferns are 

 in appearance so little like the popular conception of a fern, that 

 such a definition at once becomes necessary. 



One of the cardinal points that distinguishes a fern from the 

 higher plants is what is called the alternation of generations ; that 

 is, it takes two generations to round out the life of a fern, and only 

 one generation for higher forms. The latter are reproduced by 

 seeds, and when these are germinated, we expect from them plants 

 like those from which the seeds came. But ferns have no seeds, 

 and what might be taken for such are the spores. If the spore 

 comes into a favorable situation for growth, usually the moist sur- 

 face of earth or rock, it does not at once give rise to a new fern, 

 but instead develops a fiat heart-shaped body no larger than one's 

 little finger nail, called the prothallium. Upon this are borne 

 what correspond to the pistils and stamens of higher plants, and 

 when fertilization has taken place, the form commonly known as a 

 fern grows from it. 



If one examines the back of a fern-leaf, about mid-summer, he 

 will be likely to find it covered with brownish dots or lines which 

 may be mistaken for minute insects or some fungus which has 



