14 
HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 
becomes apparent except in the case of very aged 
plants. 
The leaves of Ferns are generally called fronds, and as 
this latter term is much the more appropriate, we shall 
adopt it, with this general explanation, that it means the 
leaf-like organs which are borne on the proper stem. The 
leaf-like character they bear has led some botanists to reject 
the term frond altogether, and to consider them as true 
leaves; but since they grow by development from their 
apex, which botanists say leaves do not, and since they 
produce, from some part of their surface, what in their 
case stands in the place of flowers, there is no more reason 
why they should be called leaves, than the leaf-like stems 
of Cactuses, or those of the curious hot-house plants called 
Xylophylla —each of which afford examples of plants, bear¬ 
ing flowers on what appear to be leaves, but which are in 
reality stems. The frond or leafy part of a Fern is, how¬ 
ever, not to be classed among stems; and hence, since it 
is of intermediate character between a leaf and a stem, a 
distinctive name seems to be properly applied to it, and 
the name in common use among botanists is that w r hich we 
have here adopted. 
There are no flowers produced by the Ferns (we use the 
