33 
would be more correct to say that they are very delicate 
and soon fall off. The frond is pinnate and the pinnae are 
deeply cut (pinnatifid) more than half-way to the mid-rib. 
The leaflets or segments are rather blunt at the top, 
oblong in form, and very slightly if at all notched at the 
edges. The stalk is very short and densely covered with 
light scales. Trom about the middle of the frond to the 
stalk the branches or pinnaB gradually become shorter and 
shorter, until the last becomes less than an inch long, and 
close to the very stem or stump (caudex). It should also 
be observed that as they taper downward they become 
more and more distant from each other.* The lowermost 
in fine specimens are often an inch and a half or two inches 
apart and triangular in form. This plant may be mistaken 
by the uninitiated for the Male Tern, but if attention be 
paid to the circumstance of the remarkable narrowing down 
of its branches, and of its clusters of fruit being much 
nearer the edge of the leaflet, the difference of the species 
will be easily discovered. It varies from ten inches to 
two feet long. The lowest pair of branches often point 
downward. If we hold the frond up to the light little 
transparent pores are sometimes visible as in some of the 
St. John’s Worts. A curious fact is also w^orth noticing, 
when the Tern begins to unfold, the branches or pinnae 
appear quite straight, and not coiled-in at their extremities 
as is generally the case with the Tern tribe. The side-veins 
of the leaflets alternate on the mid-vein with clusters of 
fruit near the extremity^ but not as in the Common Poly- 
pody at the extremity itself. If the veins are forked loth 
veins have these clusters, and in this respect also, differ 
from the Male Tern. The whole plant is likewise more 
pliant and flexible. 
This Tern is easily cultivated, if placed in bog earth or 
yellow loam, and supplied with abundance of moisture. It 
grows here most frequently on high ground upon black bog 
earth near a rippling stream. Sometimes it locates itself 
in damp open heathfields. 
The old Herbalists do not seem to have noticed this 
Tern. We have not therefore received any account of its 
* Plate I, fig. 6, not correct in this respect. 
C 
