250 PTERIS. 



fronds are borne on a common stalk. Other specimens are variously 

 lobed ; and in others the margin is irregularly sinuated, crisped or 

 curled. 



21. Pteris aquilina. Ci;e dTmi : CJjc 33rafem or JSiafetS*. 

 Common on heaths, in deans, and in hedges. Gregarious. It 

 often covers a great extent of hilly and muirish pasture, and the fine 

 short green herbage, which grows under the shade of its plumy 

 fronds, continues unhurt from the summer's heat. The fronds sicken 

 to a rich brown when touched by the first frosts of autumn, but 

 continue long in this withered state ; and then the Broom and the 

 Whin assume a darker and fresher green. In sheltered places, this 

 fern will grow to a height of 6 and 7 feet, and becomes ornamental. 

 I have found it of this height in some of our hedges and deans ; and 

 although it is more pleasant by far to trace the latter alone, on a 

 summer day, than to describe the character of any, yet I will try 

 to sketch one of the simplest, and unlike any we have hitherto 

 touched. 



On the western verge of Coldmgham moor, you may, perchance, 

 fall upon a spot covered with coarse herbage, which lures the botanist 

 to examine it with some degree of hope. He finds the ground partly 

 occupied with a pond of considerable size, from three to five feet 

 deep on the far side, but shallowing on the upper to a few inches, 

 and mingling its water with the herbage in a doubtful strife. 

 Beyond this there is a large extent of rushy ground, either dry and 

 hard, or slumpy and wet, according as the season has been " spiry " 

 or " saft." Many plants grow here to gratify and pleasure the 

 explorer. There are Carices of sorts, elegant Grasses, the Butterwort, 

 the pretty Spergula nodosa, the white Galiums,the Grass-of- Parnassus, 

 the marsh Loosestrife, the little Lycopodium, many mosses, a soft 

 cushion here and there of the Sphagnum, and, in the ruts, the little 

 bulbous Rush and the ever-green Montia, The pond itself is less 

 prolific. One side is margined with a little forest of Paddock- 

 pipes, and from their shelter the Pickerell-weeds throw out their oval 

 or elliptical leaves that float so lightly on the surface ; and on the 

 side opposite, in a corner, the Glyceria grows green and fresh, as if 

 it felt not the unclouded sun that glistens on all around, and is very 

 hot on these muirs. 



From the pond a runlet issues, to which art has given its first 

 direction. After a very short course, the drain leads its water along 

 the bottom of a shabby hedge which scarce hinders the cattle of the 

 moor from trespass on the newly reclaimed fields. The hedge is 

 passed ; and we gladly enter, with the burn, a green pasture never 

 touched with the plough. The field is breezy and slopes westwards ; 

 it is covered with a short perennial grass, rises into banks on either 



* This, however, is a family name, as in the following verse of Robert 

 TannahiU's " Gloomy Winter 's now awa : " 



" Round the sylvan fairy nooks, 

 Feathery Breckans fringe the rocks, 

 'Neath the brae the buruie jouks. 

 And ilka thing is cheerie, O." 



