THE TURKEY-FOOT FERN AGAIN. 



IT is hardly fair for the man of science to hold the novelist strictly 

 to account for his botany, but he may be permitted to specu- 

 late upon it. If the reference to the Turkey- foot fern in our 

 last issue has not settled the question regarding the application of 

 the common name, it has opened a pleasant field for discussion, 

 and we make room for two more communications on the subject: 

 " Mention of this fern occurs in another of Dr. Weir Mitchell's 

 novels, • Far in the Forest,' when one of his characters is made to 

 say: ' Why, she don't hardly know a pine from a poplar, and when 

 I told her last week that the Turkey-foot fern was a heap more 

 like peacocks than turkeys, she never knew what I meant.' This 

 comparison probably has reference to the spreading tail of these 

 fowls. And the Ostrich fern {Onoclea Struthiopteris) naturally 

 suggests itself as being the fern meant. ' It is a fern of noble 

 sort,' says Prof. Wood, and this would tend to confirm Dr. 

 Mitchell's memory of it, 'that it was called the Imperial fern.' 

 Undoubtedly it was the fertile fronds of the Onoclea that sug- 

 gested the name of Turkey-foot to the common people, and the 

 resemblance of these fronds is so close, in the two species, that an 

 untrained eye would hardly detect their difference; hence we 

 would have O. Struthiopteris as the ' Imperial ' or peacock fern, 

 and the lower and more humble O. sensibilis as the Turkey-foot. 

 It appears to me that nothing could be more suggestive of a tur- 

 key's foot and leg than these stiff, dark-brown stipes, and monili- 

 form divisions constituting the pinnae, and at a little distance look- 

 ing not unlike the heavy scales and markings on the feet and legs 

 of turkeys. The sterile fronds of O. sensibilis, with their long, 

 sinuous divisions, are also suggestive of the feet of some large 

 bird. This is my guess. Who has a better ?" — James A. Graves, 

 Susquehanna, Pa. 



"'The new brackens coming up in solitary stalks of green, 

 their summits not the fiddle-head of the ordinary fern, but resem- 

 bling rather the incurved, three claws of a large bird' (William 

 Black, in 'Yolande'). This sounds much like Turkey-foot, but 

 of course is not conclusive. Pteris aquilina is immense in its 

 growth here, and is putting up these 'claws' through the season. 

 Dr. Mitchell must have been surprised to be called up on his 

 botany." — Mrs. Stephen Knowlton, Danville, Vt. 



THE BIRTH OF A FERN. 



STARTING then from a spore, we all know that each species 

 of fern bears a harvest of these, distributed in its own special 

 way upon the backs of the fronds or upon portions of fronds 

 specially modified to bear them. These spores are extremely 

 minute bodies, usually brown in color, though sometimes, as in 



