The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-07

Possibly because they know well that no
power on earth can make the strange wild
things to grow in city gardens. They can
only be coaxed into half-hearted exist
ence in the heavy air of lighthouses and con-
servatories.
The ferns have very little in common
with civilization. They belong to past
and gone age, when the world was young
and no other form Of plant life could have
lived.
For delicate as the shy things are, dying
in night in the fostering garden soil,
they are the hardest things known on
their native heath You will find them
rooted in the bare rock in some localities
Furnishing like the green bay trees. 9th
ers, like this maidenhair, grow where the
soil is but a tangle of messy stems and
dead leaves. They are only one degree
higher in the scale of being than the
moses themselves.
These are not children of the sunlight.
You viii find them, usually, in dim, twi-
light places and they belong to the twi-
light age Of earth. If l were to transplant
yonder mallow bringing it down here in
the dusky tangle beside the maidenhair, it
would droop and grow sickly pale. In the
same way, if l were to bring the fern out
into the glare of sunlight, it would turn
yellow and sere.
The fern is the primitive tree. Ere ever
the soil covered the earth it was. 1t is the
first fruit of natures desire to cover her
rich, rank soil. They are to US part and
parcel Of the tropic landscape, with its
1uxurlance of vegetation: but we must not
mistake their presence here for an indica-
ton OF richness of soil. Once, wandering
over waste of ack laya-bed in the crater
of volcano, / found, mile from any sort
OF soil, growing out OF a crack IN the
sulphur-streaked floor, a great fern. The
pioneer of all vegetation, it had begun the
work of retaining this dark waste. A
thousand years hence potato patch may
flourish where now but those delicate
fronds wave in the breeze.
These waving fronds which form their
foliage are characteristic of the whole fern
family-Filices, the naturalistS call the
family. They have no flowers, but in no
other botanical order do we find such
variety of LEAKAGE. They may vary in size,
from the tiny feather of the delicate Cys-
topteris TO the giant branches, often
twenty feet long, of the Cyatheacese or tree
ferns of the Hawaiian islands. The tech
nical descriptions of the many varieties
are things to wonder over. One feels that
there is very little of Greek, Latin or Eng
hsh LETT for ordinary use, SO much are
these tongues used in their description.
This bit OF maidenhair for instance-which
IS also called Adiantum, from a Greek word
meaning unWetted (the raindrops never
clinglng to the fronds of the maidenhair)-
is described as having ''fronds pyramidal
IN outline, "a pinnate at the base; main
rachis continuous to the APPEAL pinnule;;
veins dichotomous," etc.-all having refer
.ence to the forms assumed by the dainty
foliage Of the maidenhair. One can see
with ones own eyes how il grows. but
why the fern should produce infinitely
subdivided fronds, no flowers and no seeds,
as we understand the word. is an interest
ing study. 1t cannot be understood in
moment.
The ferns down in my little canyon bear
traces to-day of the battle they have waged
in the struggle for existence. Growing in
barren soil, messy, Doggy places, down
beside streams and in the dark forests they
get the food upon which they live, not from
the earth, but from the air In that early
day when the atmosphere was but mass of
noxious vapors, the ferns alone could live.
They drank in the gases of the earths sur
rounding envelope, and requiring large
supplies thereof, their foliage divided and
subdivided, sending its growths out in the
feather-ike fronds that expose more sur