CHOICE FERNS FOR 
AMATEURS. 
L— NOTES ON CHOICE FERNS. 
CLASSIFICATION AND DISTRIBUTION. 
Ferns, or, as they are botanically called, Filices, 
are Flowerless plants forming the most important 
division of Linnseus's twenty-fourth Class, Crypto- 
gamia — a name that has reference to the " con- 
cealed " mode of fructification, while in the second 
class of Lindley's " Natural System they are called 
Acrogens, the division being Filicales. The genera- 
tion of vegetative life in the case of Ferns is essen- 
tially different from that of Flowering plants, where 
everything connected with the process of fertilisation 
may be observed with the naked eye. With 
plants that produce flowers, the ovaries, when they 
are either naturally or artificially fertilised, swell, 
and in the course of time yield seeds ; these, when 
placed under favourable conditions, possess the 
property of giving birth to plants which, like 
their parents, are capable of reproducing themselves 
in a direct manner by means of their flowers. 
Ferns are especially interesting to the botanist 
inasmuch as with the Lycopods they^ were 
undoubtedly amongst the first vegetation to 
B 
