BEACEEKS. 



91 



In trinervum a pair of leaflets, resembling small fronds 

 of 2 or 3 inches in length, diverge at nearly right angles 

 from the mid-rib at the base, occupying the place of the 

 lowest pair of lobes. This singular proclivity gives a 

 very characteristic appearance to the fronds. 



The variety Tieterophyllum has not much to recommend 

 it, the lobes are exceeding variable in size and form in 

 the barren fronds, v^hich look as if they might have been 

 nibbled into irregularity by some marauding rabbit. 



The branched forms have a representative in the variety 

 muUifidwn, v^hich has the fronds forked tv^o or three 

 times ; and in another variety the side lobes of the fronds 

 are also forked at their tips. 



Por the cultivation of this fern and its varieties, a 

 mixture of loam and peat is usually recommended ; but 

 soil does not appear to influence its growth so much as 

 plenty of air, shade, and moisture. 



THE BEACKUJSrS. 



The entire edge of the fronds bent back and covering the spore-cases. 



So many words employed in connection with ferns are 

 compounded of the Greek "pteris,''^ which is used as the 

 scientific name of the Brackens, that it is quite essential 

 for us to understand what 'pteris " means. Its original 

 meaning was undoubtedly "a plume" or "feather." After- 

 wards, perhaps, it became associated with such ferns as 

 have a plumose or feathery appearance, and we are occa- 

 sionally told that ''pteron^^ was the Grreek for " a fern," 

 as if it never had any other meaning. One who studies 

 ferns is called a pteridologist, and we have countless 

 botanical names, generic and specific, applied to ferns, 

 compounded of the ubiquitous pteris. 



This is the only genus of the British ferns in which the 

 spore-cases are arranged in a single narrow line along the 

 edge of the frond, with the margin of the frond curled back- 

 wards so as to form a covering. The centre of all the 

 divisions of the frond on each side of the mid-rib is bare, 



