6 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [ Sess. lxv. 



at the toj). On the bank, on one side, a quantity of wild 

 strawberries were showing their ripe fruit in the month of 

 January. On the mossy root of a tree we were delighted 

 to discover a number of tiny plants of Xiphopteris serrulata, 

 or Polypodium serndatum as it is also called, of which I 

 have a specimen here, a curious little fern, which I after- 

 wards found in great abundance on the Soufri^re, in St. 

 Vincent. There was something at every step to catch the 

 eye, and to hinder our progress. But at last we got to the 

 Gap, where the path led down to the other side of the 

 mountain range, and then we plunged upwards into the 

 wood in quest of the filmies, which we knew were there. 

 The atmosphere among the trees was close and muggy. . 

 The soil under our feet and the tree-trunks around us were 

 saturated with moisture — moisture which never dries up, 

 for the damp vapours at that height are always wrapping 

 the hills in their folds, and the direct rays of the sun 

 cannot penetrate. In such a spot it is not to the ground, 

 but to the trees, to the trunks and the branches, that you 

 look for the filmies you have come to seek. For one 

 growing on the ground there are a hundred on the trees. 

 On the wet surface of the cracked and fissured bark the 

 fern spores find an ideal place to germinate in. The stems 

 of some of the tree-ferns, in particular, being clothed with 

 aerial rootlets, or covered with a rough draffiness, form the 

 very kind of home that the tender filmies love to dwell 

 in. Let us look about us, then, and see what there is to 

 reward us for coming all the way from Scotland into tliis 

 strange, far-off, solitary place, where the whistle of the 

 steam-engine has never been heard, and Nature reigns 

 alone, as she has done from the creation of the world. 

 Here, on this fern-stem, is a mass of dark-green Trichonmnes 

 trichoidctivi, Sw., surely the daintiest plant that grows, the 

 delicate fronds rising from its thread-like, creeping root- 

 stock, and cut into segments fine as hairs, bearing the 

 diminutive fructification, which is yet perfect in all its 

 parts — cup, sori, and protruding seta. To find this gem 

 of a plant alone, in all the ideal grace of its fairy-like 

 fronds, is recompense enough for the expenditure of much 

 time and trouble. But there are other things quite as 

 good in their way. Here, for instance, is Hymenophyllum 



