THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 
Vol. X JOLlEt, ILL., JUNE, 1906. No. 6 
NAMING THE FERNS WITHOUT A BOOK. 
BY WILLARD N. CLUTE. 
ALL ferns look alike to the novice. Those of us who, by 
long association with these handsomest of plants, have 
arrived at a stage where we can recognize most of the com- 
mon species at sight, whether in frnit or not, can look back 
to a time when the most conspicuous species was a puzzle 
and though in full fruit, was not easily identified by 'any 
book in our possession. With the increase in the study, 
books designed to help in naming the ferns have multiplied 
until even the novice rarely goes astray in his identifications. 
With a good book fern collecting becomes a pleasure instead 
of a serious study, but without a book the grea,*: majority of 
the species are easily recognized. He who does not have tc 
hunt down his species through the mazes of a technical key, 
misdirected here and there by unfamiliar or half-undersiood 
terms, gains somewhat in the mere matter of time, but he 
misses something of that elation with which after a long 
chase we older ones pounced upon our quarry. We are 
not yet ready to give up the technical manuals entirely — 
they are still invaluable for settling questions of minute 
differences — and the popular books are almost indispensable, 
but much, as we have said, can be learned without one. 
It need hardly be said, probably, that the spores of 
ferns are usually borne on the under side of the leaves, where 
the fruiting parts form curious dots of various shapes and 
sizes, and that the fi.rm and arrangement of these fruiting 
parts serv-e as a convenient means of identifying the species. 
In our study without a book, howe\'er, k wall often be found 
