The fern portfolio. All the species of British ferns are included in this volume
Year: 1885
Type: book
Abstract: HE aim of "The Fern Portfolio " is the production of a series of life-size representations of the fronds of Ferns, with accompanying letterpress descriptions.The text is intended to be quite subordinate to the plates.These it is the especial object of the work to render absolutely life-like pictures of the plants from which they are drawn ; and infinite pains have been taken to attain this object.A common, and it may, indeed, be said to be the general, method of botanical illustra- tion is to give an approximate drawing of the outline of the leaf or frond of a plant, with a few " artistic " scratches, lightly dashed off, to indicate the course of the mid and side, or branch, veins, and to throw colour in-where it is employed-with just shading enough to give an approximate idea of the hue ; and no attempt has ever been made to produce an absolute fac-smiile-in form, colour, and venation (by which is meant the veining, or system of veins) of a plant leaf or frond.The Author of this volume was the first to attempt to depart from this common, and inexact, method of plant illustration; and in "Our Woodland Trees," first published in 1878, he gave, in a series of eight plates, fac-swiileSy in outline, in veining, and in colour, of the leaves of British trees.In 1881 he published, in "Autumnal Feaves," another set of twelve plates, giving, on precisely the same plan, facsimiles^in the form of 252 figures, of autumn-tinted foliage.The high praise lavished by the entire British press upon these attempts to picture the exceeding beauty of the leaves of trees when in the height of their summer sheen, and when under the glow of their departing hues, furnished the inducement to represent Ferns in a similar manner, but with the difference that the fronds of the flowerless plants should be life-size.The leaf fac-similes in "Our Woodland Trees" and in "Autumnal Leaves" were reduced in the drawings-to accommodate the latter to the size of large post octavo volumes-to one-fourth of their natural size.Leaves, moreover, lose very little by the process of reduction, because, even in the case of the smaller ones, the reduced figures are large enough to enable the details of the characteristic venation to be clearly seen.But with Ferns the case is different, and the venation of the smaller parts could not be shown unless these were reproduced life-size.''S OsJAs no adequate representation of natural-sized specimens could be given without space enough to include an entire frond in the case of the majority of the species, the size selected for this work is sixteen by twelve inches.Even within these limits it is, of course, impossible to give the w'hole frond in the case of such large kinds as the Royal Fern and the Bracken : and, in general, moderately-sized specimens have been selected for purposes of illustration ; but where a portion is given of a frond-in two cases only in this volume that portion is still life-size.The object of "The Fern Portfolio," it is repeated, is to give absolutely life-like pictures of Fernspictures so true to nature, in every detail, that identification of the £ 'p:,
Author: Francis George Heath
Language: English
Topic: Fern and Epiphyte Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2523940433