Ferns in General . 
3 
rachis . These are all the technicalities we need he 
troubled with, save and except as we go on the names 
of the ferns themselves. From the sublime to the 
ridiculous is but a step. I have just made that step 
while walking through the fern-house to obtain the 
needful inspiration to write this little book. There I 
saw my plumy emerald green pets glistening with health 
and headings of warm dew, and I thought it might help 
me if I read their names. Here are a few of them— 
Acrostichum Requienianum, Alsophila Jungliuhniana, 
Anemia Schimperiana, Aspidium Karwinskyanum, 
Polystichum Plaschnichianum, Asplenium Gaudichan- 
dianum, Euphegopteris hexagonopterum, Dictyopteris 
megalocarpum. You must endure this sort of thing 
if you purpose giving the slightest amount of attention 
to ferns, for only a few out of thousands have English 
names, and to translate the botanical names into English 
would be very imprudent, not to say sometimes im¬ 
possible. But I assure you the names do not spoil the 
plants, they only compel fern books to be ugly and 
forbidding. Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs was 
an unamiable person, but my Mohria thurifraga var. 
Achillisefolia is as sweet a bit of vegetable jewellery as 
you are likely to meet with in a day^s march, and I am 
sure you will admire, when you find it, Didymoglossum 
vel Trichomanes radicans. 
