None of the early Ferns show any clear approach to other classes of Vascular Cryptogams; so far as the fossil record affords any evidence, Ferns have always been plants with relatively large and usually compound leaves. There is no indication of their derivation from a microphyllous ancestry, though, as we shall see, there is some slight evidence for the converse hypothesis. Whatever the origin of the Ferns may have been it is hidden in the older rocks.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
The Ferns go back to the earliest known period. In Mesozoic times practically all the existing families had appeared; in the Palaeozoic the class was less extensive than formerly believed, a majority of the supposed Ferns of that age having proved to be seed-bearing plants. The oldest authentic representatives of the Ferns were megaphyllous plants, broadly speaking, of the same type as those of later epochs, though differing much in detail. As far back as the record extends they show no sign of becoming merged with other phyla in any synthetic group.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
It is not likely that the characters in which the Bennettiteae resemble the Ferns came to them directly from ancestors belonging to that class; an extensive group of Seed-plants, the Pteridospermeae, existed in Palaeozoic times and bear evident marks of affinity with the Fern phylum. The fern- like characters so remarkably persistent in the highly organised Cycadophyta of the Mesozoic were in all likelihood derived through the Pteridosperms, plants which show an unmistakable approach to the cycadophytic type.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
Yet she sighed as Hugh Fernely's face rose before her. If she could but forget it! After all it had been on her side but a mockery of love. Yet another sigh broke from her lips, and then Lord Airlie looked anxiously at her. "Does anything trouble you, Miss Earle?" he asked. "I never remember to have seen you so serious before."
She looked for a moment wistfully into his face. Ah, if he could help her, if he could drive this haunting memory from her, if ever it could be that she might tell him of this her trouble and ask him to save her from Hugh Fernely! But that was impossible.英文原著 · 《Dora Thorne》
Look here. that little thing a fern! Hold it up to the light, and see. What a lovely little thing, like a transparent sea-weed, hung on black wire. What is it? Film fern, Hymenophyllum. But what are you staring at now, with all your eyes? that rock covered with green stars and a cloud of little white and pink flowers growing out of them.英文原著 · 《Madam How and Lady Why》
The ash shares this virtue with the hazel and fern. A Swedish peasant will tell you that snakes may be deprived of their venom by a touch with a hazel wand; and when an ancient Greek had occasion to make his bed in the woods, he selected fern leaves if possible, in the belief that the smell of them would drive away poisonous animals.[51]英文原著 · 《Myths and Myth-Makers》