FERNS. 1 1 



kidney-shaped covers. Some stones lying in the brook 

 tempted me to cross, and I succeeded in doing so without 

 wetting my feet. Under the deep bank on the other side, 

 the fronds bowing so as nearly to dip into the stream, I 

 espied some Ferns of the long narrow form I was seeking. 

 The plant was about a foot and a half high, eight fronds 

 springing in a circle from the rhizome, each bending out- 

 wards, so as to form a basket or crown shape. They were 

 broad in the centre, and tapered to each extremity. In 

 some the pinnae were placed alternately on the rachis ; in 

 others they were nearly opposite. The leaflets or pin- 

 nules were scolloped sharply, and a kind of ear at the 

 base of each gave them somewhat of a crescent form. 

 When I gathered a frond I found it very tough, and re- 

 quiring a good deal of force to detach it. My lens 

 showed me the round covers on the spore-masses, with 

 their central attachment, but I was at first at a loss to 

 know which Polystichum it was. It recurred to my 

 mind having heard a great botanist explain the difference 

 between two of these Ferns. " The angular one," he said, 

 " when held up to the light, showed a clear line between 

 the pinnee and the stems, while in the acute species the 

 pinnules were so close at the base as to show no light be- 

 tween them/' I held one up against the rich light of 

 the settinp; sun, and the leaflets seemed to run together 

 — another, the same : this, then, was the common Prickly 

 Shield-Fern (Polystichum aculeatum). I found other 

 fronds with the leaflets as finely cut but somewhat broader 

 and more distinctly eared ; holding it up I was gladdened 

 by the sight of the clear line. Here, then, I had a 

 second member of the family — the Angular Prickly 



