44 FERNS. 



" To point out, perchance, sonic flower or weed too fair 

 Either to be divided from the place 

 On which it grew, or to be left alone 

 To its own beauty. Many such there were, 

 Fair Ferns and flowers, and chiefly that tall Fern 

 So stately, of the Queen Osmunda named ; 

 Plant lovelier, in its own retired abode, 

 On Grassmere's beach, than Naiad by the side 

 Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere, 

 Sole sitting by the shores of old romance." 



Our Yorkshire rambles supplied us with specimens of 

 the last order of Ferns, the Ophioglossacese. 



In the hilly field beyond our favourite wood we found 

 the curious Adder 's-tongue (Ophioglossum vulgatum, 

 Plate IV., Jig. 8). It consists of a broad sheathing leaf 

 or frond, and a tongue formed of a double row of spores 

 shooting up from its centre, somewhat in the style of 

 the wild Arum. I have seen this strange Fern in Wilt- 

 shire some years before ; an old woman, a dealer in 

 simples, had taken me with her to gather it. It was 

 growing then, as now, in a pasture field ; but she knew 

 its situation perfectly, and parted the long grass at 

 r^x exactly the spot where the 



2 f^^&l sheath-like frond was standing. 



{^l ^S-> L /ul3\ ^) ^ ie concoc t e d a kind of oint- 

 (*3t fty ^< \ ment from the plant. 

 /^f^F/ r~; -<; In some other fields we found 



^?fc$y x C iC^ * ne M° oirwor t (Botrychium 



1. ophioglossum. lunaria, Plate IV., Jig. 7). 



2. botrychium. ft has a double row of cres- 

 cent shaped dentated leaflets, each marked with a dark 



