DESCEIPTION OF A FEEN. 
A Feen is the highest order of not-flowering plants, and 
has fibrous vascular tissue. The leaf or leafy part is called 
a frond. Plate I. b to e. What is below the frond, is the 
stalk (stipes) Plate I. e to a. It has fibrous roots, a creep- 
ing underground-stem (rhizome) or an upright trunk or stem 
(caudex.) The stalk and sometimes the mid- 
rib or mid-stem (rachis) of the frond is for 
the most part covered with scales. Vide Plate 
I, fig. e to A. Though a Fern has no flower, it 
has clusters of spores (seeds) in thin bags 
invisible to the human eye. In most cases 
these bags have a jointed elastic ring usually 
incomplete, which bursts open when the 
spores are ripe, and allows them to escape. 
In the representation here given the part 
7? ^ is the elastic ring, and the rest of the figure the spore 
bag. This, too, cannot be seen without 
a microscope. Most species have the 
fruit on the back of the leaves, and have 
their buds rolled in (circinate) before 
the fronds are expanded. Small as the 
bags are, and unperceived by the human 
eye, the spores or seeds contained within 
them are still more minute. 
“ The seeds of fern which by prolific heat, 
Cheered and unfolded form a plant so great, 
Are less a thousand times than what the eye 
Can unassisted by the tube descry.” — Blakemore. 
The organs of reproduction are generally called spores, 
because proper seeds have an embryo root and one or two 
leaves, according as it is an Endogen or Exogen. If the 
seed be sown, as, for instance, the bean, with the embryo 
root upward and embryo leaves downward, the seed will 
turn itself round and force the leaves upward and the root 
downwards. ISTot so the spores. Fern seed was said by the 
superstitious of yore to render persons invisible, if gathered 
on the eve of St. John’s day. 
“We steal as in a castle cocksure, 
We have the receipt of fern seed, 
