118 FILICES 
formerly abounded with the Marsh Fern; the entire surface was so com- 
pletely scummed over (if I may use the expression) with a thick blanket of 
the matted roots of the fern, interspersed with bog-moss, marsh cinquefoil, 
etc., that no water was visible; and, more properly speaking, the spot could 
not be called a pit, but a shaking bog. Some years ago the field was brought 
to the hammer, and purchased by an industrious, hard-working man, who, at 
no small expense of labour, drained the bog and converted it into profitable 
ground. Of course there was an end of the Marsh Fern in that situation ; 
nor do I know, at this moment, any other habitat where it is to be found.” 
This botanist also expresses his regret when, on revisiting a charming boggy 
meadow on the skirts of Chemsley Wood, near Coleshill, abounding with 
the rare butterworts, sundews, grass of Parnassus, cranberries, cotton grass, 
and the orchideous plant termed helleborine—a spot which, as he says, was 
“one of Nature’s own botanical gardens”—he found it converted into a 
potato ground. This writer says that he had been delighted with the spot 
in his youth, and had spent many an hour in exploring its natural treasures. 
He adds: “It is not only to the cultivation of waste lands, and to agricul- 
tural improvements, that the extermination of some of our rarer plants is 
owing; it may be attributed, also, in part at least, to the rapacity of 
botanists, who, in some cases, too greedily pluck up, root and branch, every 
specimen of a rare plant they can meet with.” 
The Marsh Fern, though a pretty plant, is one of the least ornamental of 
a genus producing several ferns of peculiar grace. It has a slender stalk, 
arising from a black underground stem, which creeps to a great extent in the 
soft soil, and sends forth a large number of tough fibrous roots. The frond 
is lanceolate in form, and pinnate; the pinnez are usually opposite, and cut 
into lobes nearly to the mid-rib ; the lobes are entire, numerous, and rounded 
at the end, those of the fertile frond having their margins curled backwards, 
so as to give them the appearance of being narrower and more pointed. 
The colour of this fern is a pale green, and its texture somewhat thin and 
delicate ; but the fertile frond has a much more vigorous appearance than 
the barren one. The latter appears in May, and the fertile frond in July. 
Each lobe of the Marsh Fern has a somewhat winding mid-vein, from 
which the side veins branch alternately, and the clusters of fructification are 
seated on both branches, half-way between the mid-vein and the margin. 
The clusters are abundant, and in an early stage of the plant the thin, 
white, membrane-like indusium may be seen; but as the capsules increase 
in size it disappears. The fronds of this species are not so tufted as some 
others, but spring up, at intervals, from the long slender underground stem. 
2. Heath Fern, or Sweet Mountain Fern (L. oredpteris).— Fronds 
tufted, pinnate; pinne pinnatifid; fructification marginal. This species 
resembles the last in so many of its characters that it has often been 
mistaken for it; but when growing, it has a very different aspect on the 
landscape. Its fronds, instead of rising here and there at distances from 
each other, spring up in almost circular tufts, and are usually two or three 
feet high ; the stalk is very short, and covered with pale brown scales, while 
in the Marsh Fern it is smooth. As its familiar name would indicate, this 
fern grows on exposed and mountainous places, on heaths and dry pastures, 
