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

  • Thomas Moore
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    03 thick as one's tliumb; but that of the common Eraclven, or Pteris, which is formed under ground, creeps the most extensively. The Osmunda, or Flower- ing Fern, as it is called, is, of the native upright- growing species, that which most readily gains height; and very old plants of this may sometimes be found with bare stems of a foot or more in length. The stems of the common Male Fern, of Lastrea moniana, and of Polijstichim angulare, have also a tendency, though in a less degree, to this upright mode of growth ; but it never 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 sliall henceforward adopt it, with this general explana- tion, that it means the leaf-like organs which are r.orne on the proper stem. The leaf-like character they bear has led some persons to reject the term frond altogether, and to consider them as true leaves; but since tliey grow by development from their apex, which botanists say leaves do not, and since they pro- duce, 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 should tlie leaf-like stems of Cactuses, or of the curious hot- house plants called Xi/lopJiijlla, each of which afford examples of plants bearing flowers on what appear to be leaves, but which are in reality stems. The frond or leafy part of a Fern is, however, not to be classed among stems; and hence, since it is of intermediate character between a leaf and a stem, the distinctive
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