The history of ferns goes back to the mists of antiquity. There was a time when ferns and plants like them filled the earth. It was a wet and dripping time. Flowers would have been of no use at all but spores could carry on their lives in the prevailing dampness. Some ferns grew as large as trees. The falling stems of these mighty tree ferns were floated together by mighty streams, carried away to the sea and buried under sand and mud. The remains of these plants being thus shut off from the air, could not rot but were slowly changed into coal. The impressions of leaves and stems of these
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