16 
ATHYKIUM FIFIX-FCEMINA. 
[ Opened female fern. ] 
THE LADY FERN. 
Syn. — Polypodium filix foemina, Asplenium f. f., 
Aspidium f. f. 
The name of this fern is a botanical compliment to 
the fair sex. As women are smaller of limb and 
fairer of face, and more delicate of structure than 
men, so this plant is more delicate m make, among 
ferns than the rest of that tribe, and especially so 
than that one to which the name Male Fern has 
been given. The root is what is called tufted. 
The rachis smooth, green, or sometimes purple, 
and devoid of scales. Pinnae or side branches, 
from twenty to forty pair, alternate, and tapering 
gradually to a point. Pinnules oblong, narrowing 
towards the point, serrated so deeply as almost to 
be cut in to the mid-vein, — which form is called 
pinnatifid. I am no advocate, for employing long, 
learned, or scientific words if they can be done 
without : but in describing the parts of a plant, or 
the features of a plant, it is difficult to dispense with 
technical terms altogether. The word frond is pre- 
ferred to the word leaf, although frond is only the 
Latin word for leaf. . By the word leaf, as the leaf 
of an elm, we understand a solid flat expanse, 
whereas a fern leaf, except in the Scolopendrium, 
is cut up into many little leaves. Botanists, con- 
sequently, for distinction sake, prefer the name 
frond. Then, the centre stalk of the frond has side 
leaves, as in the Polypodium, called pinnce, fins or 
wings. It would require many words to make a 
friend understand what part of the plant you meant, 
if you did not employ the word pinnse ; hence the 
convenience of adopting it. The same may be said 
of the expression pinnules, which are subdivisions 
of the pinnce. And pinnatifid, a descriptive term 
used above, simply means, when a pinna (singular 
of pinnse) is cut in almost to the mid- vein or stalk, 
but not quite. All arts and sciences have their 
technical terms, repulsive to new comers, who ap- 
proach the entrance-gate of those studies : but after 
