34 _ BRITISH FERNS, 
with strict propriety, be called a leaf, because it 
combines the characters of branch and leaf; this is 
not perhaps, at first thought, quite so apparent as 
when it comes to be considered carefully in all its 
bearings: take, for instance, the beautiful genus 
Lygodium, not a native of Britain: the frond of 
this genus, after appearing in the usually circinate 
or convolute form, climbs up the stems of the shrubs 
amongst which it grows, twining round and round 
in a spiral manner, just in the same way as the 
hop-plant on a pole; its stalk is tough, wiry and 
Yery durable, and from every part of this stalk arise 
palmate divisions or leaves, exactly like those of the 
various species of ivy, Now it would be very con- 
fusing, in the case of the hop or any other plant, 
to call the stalk and leayes by the same name: 
and it is so with Ferns; and it is on this account 
that the term “frond” has been substituted for 
“leaf,” because the word “leaf,” although expressing 
a great part of the truth, does not express the whole 
trath. Moreover, in a great many Ferns, the 
Flowering Fern for example, the divisions of the 
frond are deciduous, falling off in mene just Rien 
