THE FERN BULLETIN 



Vol. XIX 



OCTOBER, 1911 



No. 4 



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THE MALE FERN. 



Nephrodiu m /i Rx- mas. 

 By Willard N. Clute. 



The modern writers on ferns are prone to designate 

 the plants by their scientific appellations and if any at- 

 tention at all is given to the names in the vernacular, 

 they are usually thrown in, in a half apologetic paren- 

 thesis, as a slight concession to those who have not yet 

 attained proficiency in juggling words in a dead langu- 

 age. But it has not always been thus. In the good old 

 days when men studied plants to discover their "vir- 

 tues" and when the uses of a species bulked much 

 larger in the collectors estimation than any dubious 

 "honor" that might be derived from changing its name 

 or perchance giving it an entirely new one. the common 

 names of plants far transcended the scientific in im- 

 portance. In that age, the species under discussion 

 was known by the name of male fern, only. It was not 

 until a more sophisticated generation had brought the 

 name-tinker into existence that the eminent gentle- 

 men who posed as philosophers began to designate their 

 specimens by a string of Latin appellations — provided 

 they were masters of sufficient learning to string the re- 

 sounding terms together intelligently — but the common 

 people simply used the time-honored common names 

 and let it go at that. The nuisance of nomenclature is 

 a fairly modern one and though not to be ascribed en- 

 tirely to a few denizens of Eastern America, goes back 

 not much farther than the immortal Linnaeaus. These 

 ancient worthies, deprived of Carnagie libraries and 



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