492 WILD FLOWERS OP 



the verge of the sullen morass, like a grove of minia- 

 ture pine trees. So have I seen them drooping in 

 beauty over the dark boggy ditch or stream, just 

 bubbling into life, in dreamy solitudes in South Wales, 

 visited only by the woodcock or moisture-loving snipe. 

 In Grlyn Neath they adorn the scene in many places, 

 and I have observed them plentifully by a marshy 

 wood, between Neath and Britton Ferry, in company 

 with the yellow flowering Lysimachia vulgaris. Mr. 

 EDWABD NEWMAN, who has made the British Ferns 

 all his own in his most elegant as well as scientific 

 descriptive volume upon them, dips his pen in poetry 

 when mentioning this Equisetuin. " In Scotland," 

 he says, " I observed it growing with peculiar luxuri- 

 ance in the vicinity of Loch Fyne, in a little fir wood 

 on a hill side. The fructification had entirely disap- 

 peared, -and each stem had attained its full develop- 

 ment, and every pendulous branch its full length and 

 elegance. Altogether I could have fancied it a magic 

 scene, created by the fairies for their especial use and 

 pleasure, and sacred to the solemnization of their 

 moon-lit revels. It was a forest in miniature, and a 

 forest of surpassing beauty. It is impossible to give 

 any adequate idea of such a scene, either by language 

 or illustration. In "Wales it occurs at Hafod, and 

 near the Devil's Bridge, in deep shaded ravines, occa- 

 sionally straggling into open and exposed places, but 

 then partially divested of its characteristic elegance."* 

 Still tempted to look out even amidst the gloom 

 that oft envelopes the skies of October, when heavy 

 towering tempestuous clouds crowdle densely upon 

 each other, and the river reddens with rainy strife, 



* NEWMAN, in Phytologist, vol. i. p. 694. 



