British ferns and their allies : comprising the ferns, club-mosses, pepperworts, & horsetails / by Thomas Moore.

Thomas Moore

Date:: 1881

Credit: British ferns and their allies : comprising the ferns, club-mosses, pepperworts, & horsetails / by Thomas Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Fteris may be readily known from that by the lines being in it confined to the margin, leaving the centre unoccnpiedj while in Blechnum the extreme margin is unoccupied by the sori. Pteris is a Greek name for a Forn, and is derived from another Greek word, which signifies/ea^/^iJr; and, of course, is applied in reference to the graceful feather-like aspect which the fronds of Ferns gene- rally possess. When the plant is very luxuriant this name is quite as applicable to the Bracken as to any other known Fern. This consideration is perhaps enough to justify the application to this species, by the older writers, of the name of Female Fern, which scarcely seems appropriate to the commoner uncouth-looking form which the plant more usually bears. .COMMON BRAKES, OR BRACKEy. \_Plate ix.] The botanical name of the bracken is Pteris aqui- lina; that of Eupteris aqiiilina has also been pro- posed. This Fern has a caudex that creeps very extensively beneath the surface of the soil. This caudex is thickish, black-looking, and succulent, containing a good deal of starch. From it are produced, at intervals, the annual fronds, which generally make their appearance about the latter end of May. The fronds themselves have been variously described, and often erroneously, for they are not unfrequently said to be three- branched ; but except when very mucli starved and stunted, do not approach that form very nearly.$