206 WILD FLOWERS OP 



( Grammitis ceteracli) . A few are partial to maritime 

 situations, as the Asplenium lanceolatum, which is so 

 plentiful on the rocks about Barmouth: while the 

 waving fronds of the Sea Spleenwort (Asplenium 

 marinwn), decorate the caves of ocean with a classical 

 nereidic foliage. The singularly beautiful Venus's 

 Hair (Adiantum Capillus-veneris), is partial to sea 

 cliffs moistened by land springs, and in such places 

 about Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, in deep sequestered 

 coves like White Pebble Bay, and others at the 

 indented base of old Hillsborough, it catches the eye 

 of the Botanical Looker-out in a chain of brilliant 

 verdure often far out of his reach. Nothing can 

 exceed in elegance the fructification of this delicate 

 fern. The numerous fine fibres springing from its 

 roots have the appearance of hair, whence perhaps 

 the common name Venus's Hair. 



Other ferns of this division are chained to moun- 

 tain rocks, there to bear all the vicissitudes of heat 

 and cold, as the Parsley Fern (Allosorus crispus), so 

 indicative of an alpine station, and spreading luxu- 

 riantly on the secondary slopes of Cadir Idris, 

 Snowdon, and the mountains of Yorkshire and Cum- 

 berland. This elegant species, the barren frond of 

 which is of so delicate a green ere it becomes burnt 

 up from exposure, varies much in size according to 

 the altitude it attains. On the Berwyn mountains, 

 near the cataract of Pistill Rhaidwr, it assumes almost 

 a shrubby aspect. In similar mountain habitats, 

 though of very rare occurrence, the Hair-Ferns 

 (Woodsia)* take up their abode. The Bladder-ferns 



* The rare Woodsia Ilvensis grows on the rocks at Falcon Glints, in 

 Teesdale, Yorkshire, as thus noticed by Mr. SAMUEL KING, in A Botanical 

 Excursion in Teesdale." Here [at Falcon Clints] I cast around many 



