[Illustration: Fig. 6]

[Illustration: Fig. 7]




THE FERN FAMILY PROPER OR REAL FERNS

_POLYPODIÀCEÆ_


Green, leafy plants whose spores are borne in spore-cases (sporangia),
which are collected in dots or clusters (fruit-dots or sori) on the back
of the frond or form lines along the edge of its divisions. Sporangia
surrounded by vertical, elastic rings bursting transversely and scattering
the spores. Fruit-dots (sori) often covered, at least when young, by a
membrane called the indusium. Spores brown.


THE POLYPODIES

1. POLYPODY. _Polypodium_

(From the Greek meaning many-footed, alluding to the branching rootstocks.)

Simple ferns with stipes articulated to the creeping rootstocks, which are
covered with brown, chaffy scales. Fruit-dots round, naked, arranged on the
back of the frond in one or more rows each side of the midrib. Sporangia
pedicelled, provided with a vertical ring which bursts transversely. A