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CHAPTER IX. 
DISTRIBUTION OF FERNS. 
Upwards of three thousand species of ferns are known 
upon the globe. They reach their maximum in numbers, 
size, and beauty, in the humid valleys and islands of the 
tropics. In New Zealand, Van Diemen’s Land, South 
America, and parts of the East and West Indies, noble 
ferns are found, their giant trunks rising to the height 
of thirty or forty feet, from the top of which feathery 
fronds arise, stretching many feet upwards nearer to 
the lowering clouds, then bending outwards in many an 
arch of exquisite symmetry, or drooping in a pendulous 
manner, as if unable longer to support their own light 
weight. In the same damp but heated atmosphere 
climbing ferns flourish, twining round the boles of forest 
trees to the height of twenty fe6t, or extending from 
bush to bush, and making endless festoons of feathery 
foliage, rivalling in elegance our Passion Flowers and 
Climbing Vetches. There, too, shrubby ferns mingle 
with the underwood, or stand in symmetrical beauty 
alone, equalling our smaller trees in height, and with 
boles either tall enough to suggest the column with its 
capital of foliage, or only high enough to prevent its 
pendent eight-feet-long fronds from touching the ground. 
