How to Know the Ferns

BY S. LEONARD BASTIN
WITH THIRTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON
First Published in 1917
In its lowest forms vegetable life is a very simple affair. The minute Algæ which clothe damp surfaces with a green film show few indeed of the characteristics with which we are familiar in the higher plants. Certainly they are green, proving that the tiny cells of which they are composed contain the wonderful colouring matter—chlorophyll, by means of which they are able to assimilate carbon from the carbonic acid of the air. There is, however, in these lowly plants no sign of a stem, a leaf, or a root. As we ascend in the scale of vegetable life we begin to get an increasing number of distinctive characters. In the case of the Mosses we have plants with distinct stems and leaves. But Mosses have no true roots, neither is there any vascular (woody) tissue in their composition. Mounting yet higher in the scale we come to a very important and interesting group of plants usually referred to as the Vascular Cryptogams. In this group are included the Ferns, the Horsetails, and the Club Mosses. In passing, it may be pointed out that the term Cryptogam is a name which was originally given to the flowerless plants by Linnæus to indicate that the plan of fertilization was hidden. The name is still retained, but it has lost its meaning in this sense, in that since the introduction of high-power microscopes it is not necessarily more difficult to study the fertilization of the non-flowering plants than it is to watch the process in the kinds which bear blossoms.
A small acquaintance with the Vascular Cryptogams will show us that they approach very closely to the flowering plants, or Phanerogams, as they are called, in their general features. It is true that in the cases of the Club Mosses and Horsetails the leaves are small or very poorly developed, but with the Ferns the foliage is often of an advanced type. All the Vascular Cryptogams, apart from a few insignificant exceptions, produce real roots; and, as the name implies, in a botanical sense, evidence woody tissue in their composition. Whilst the Club Mosses and Horsetails are comparatively humble plants, the Ferns have reached a remarkable development in the arboreal species. These, of course, grow into large trees which may be fifty or more feet in height, with thick woody trunks. Our common Male Fern not infrequently forms a short trunk-like stem if it is allowed to remain in an undisturbed state for a number of years. Not all the Ferns are large or even of moderate size; many of the Filmy Ferns are so minute that they are often taken for Mosses by those who do not know any better.