46 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



mon Adiantum palatum. Ah well! they were very 

 charming even though no fame attended their dis- 

 covery. 



About the same time I found some tiny ferns with 

 blades perhaps an inch and a half long, tapering both 

 ways from the middle and so frail that after they were 

 pressed their reality was only proven by their per- 

 fection. I puzzled over them for some time, compar- 

 ing them with this or that, until one day it flashed 

 over me that they, too, were babies, resembling in 

 "build," at least, their parent, the New York fern, and 

 now that it is impossible for me to longer evade the 

 disappointing fact that rare ferns are not common nor 

 readily found I find much pleasure in the tiny forms 

 that often set me guessing their identity. 



The Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoidcs) 

 is one that can hardly be mistaken unless in the very 

 earliest stages of growth though contrary to many 

 precedents the juvenile forms lack the grace of mature 

 fronds; but the youthful progeny of Atkyrium Hlix- 

 focmina must seem to their lady mother like the 

 changelings of a fairy tale so little do they resemble 

 the parent plant. But all this applies only to those 

 ferns that are reproduced by spores. 



The young plants produced by the bulblets found 

 on the fronds of the bulbiferous bladder ferns, or from 

 stolons, as the ostrich fern ; or from rooting tips of the 

 mature fronds as trie walking fern, are much more 

 mature from the first than sporelings and are quite 

 like children masquerading in their mothers' gowns. 



To one whose opportunities for study in the field 

 are limited by time or strength to places easily acces- 

 sible the study of these fern children is especially al- 

 luring, for long after the possibilities of a haunt have 



