The Fern Lover's Companion

It tells us',Nature made a fern for pure leaves'. Fern leaves are in the highest order of cryptogams. Like those of flowering plants they are reinforced by woody fibres running through their stems, keeping them erect while permitting graceful curves. Their exquisite symmetry of form, their frequent finely cut borders, and their rich shades of green combine to make them objects of rare beauty; while their unique vernation and method of fruiting along with their wonderful mystery of reproduction invest them with marked scientific interest affording stimulus and culture to the thoughtful mind. By peculiar enchantments these charming plants allure the ardent Nature-lover to observe their haunts and habits. As a rule the larger and coarser ferns grow in moist, shady situations, as swamps, ravines, and damp woods; while the smaller ones are more apt to be found along mountain ranges in some dry and even exposed locality. A tiny crevice in some high cliff is not infrequently chosen by these fascinating little plants, which protect themselves from drought by assuming a mantle of light wool, or of hair and chaff, with, perhaps, a covering of white powder as in some cloak ferns--thus keeping a layer of moist air next to the surface of the leaf, and checking transpiration. Some of the rock-loving ferns in dry places are known as 'resurrection' ferns, reviving after their leaves have turned sere and brown. A touch of rain, and lo! they are green and flourishing. Ferns vary in height from the diminutive filmy fern of less than an inch to the vast tree ferns of the tropics, reaching a height of sixty feet or more.