The proportion of ferns to flowering plants in recent floras is a question of some interest from a palaeobotanical point of view; but we must bear in mind the fact that the evolution of angiosperms, effected at a late stage in the history of the earth, seriously disturbed the balance of power among competitors for earth and air. The abundance of ferns in a particular region is, however, an unsafe guide to geographical or climatic conditions. Many ferns are essentially social plants; the wide stretches of moorland carpeted with _Pteris aquilina_ afford an example of the monopolisation of the soil by a single species. In Sikkim Sir Joseph Hooker speaks of extensive groves of tree ferns, and in the wet regions of the Amazon, Bates[727] describes the whole forest glade as forming a “vast fernery.” In a valley in Tahiti _Alsophila tahitiensis_ is said to form “a sort of forest almost to the exclusion of other ferns[728].” In the abundance of _Glossopteris_ (figs. 334, etc.) fronds spread over wide areas of Permo-Carboniferous rocks in S. Africa, Australia, and India, we have a striking instance of a similar social habit in an extinct fern or at least fern-like plant. _Acrostichum aureum_, with pinnate fronds several feet long, is an example of a recent fern covering immense tracts, but this species[729] is more especially interesting as a member of the Filicineae characteristic of brackish marshes and the banks of tropical rivers in company with Mangrove plants and the “Stemless Palm” _Nipa_. This species exhibits the anatomical characters of a water-plant and affords an interesting parallel with some Palaeozoic ferns (species of _Psaronius_) which probably grew under similar conditions. =The Anatomy of Ferns.= The text-book accounts of fern-anatomy convey a very inadequate idea of the architectural characters displayed by the vascular systems of recent genera. When we are concerned with the study of extinct plants it is essential to be familiar not only with the commoner recent types, but particularly with exceptional or aberrant types. The vascular system of many ferns consists of strands of xylem composed of scalariform tracheae associated with a larger or smaller amount of parenchyma, surrounded either wholly or in part (that is concentric or bicollateral) by phloem: beyond this is a pericycle, one layer or frequently several layers in breadth, limited externally by an endodermis, which can usually be readily recognised. The vascular strands are embedded in the ground-tissue of the stem consisting of thin-walled parenchyma and, in most ferns, a considerable quantity of hard and lignified mechanical tissue. The narrow protoxylem elements are usually characterised by a spiral form of thickening, but in slow-growing stems the first-formed elements are frequently of the scalariform type.