290 SPRING FLOWERS OF THE SOUTH OF EUROPE. {^OctobeV, 



vegetable ricties, being unfavourable to the growth of nearly all 

 the more beautiful Ferns. It is only the damper, Atlantic pro- 

 vinces of France, th6 west and north-west, which offer any parallel 

 in this particular to our green commons and moist hedgesides. 

 Our numerous Lastreas, our Lady-Fern, our Polystichums, our 

 Blechnum, our Osmunda, in the true South are scarcely to be 

 met with out of the mountains. Our Sussex Hymenophyllum, 

 except an indication in Corsica, is known as a French plant solely 

 in Brittany. Even our common Brake, the Pteris aquilina, is 

 rarely met with in the plains of the Mediterranean region. The 

 only Ferns which are at all widely diffused in that portion of 

 France, are the Ceterach, which, as in our western counties, 

 abounds on walls and rocks; the commoner Aspleniums [Tricho- 

 manes, Ruta-niuraria, and Adiantum-nigrum) , the universal Poly- 

 podium vulgare, and, most beautiful of all, the Maidenhair, Adi- 

 antum Ccqnllus- Veneris, which haunts the spray of falling water, 

 and lines all cavities which combine dampness with depth of 

 shade. Here, then, is one of the loveliest families of the Vege- 

 table Kingdom, one of those which by their verdure, grace, and 

 conspicuousness, and by their abundance in climates suited to 

 them, do most to beautify the face of nature, and in which the 

 opulent South cannot be for a moment compared in wealth with 

 our modest northern latitudes. 



Another advantage which we possess, and which has not per- 

 haps been so much remarked upon, is our striking superiority 

 over the South, considered generally, in the flowery beauty of our 

 spring. We are indeed greatly surpassed in the mere number 

 of species which flower at that, as at every other season. But 

 the multitude and splendour of gregarious flowering plants which 

 constitute the floral brilliancy of the South, and to which our 

 mild summer can show nothing comparable, does not really begin 

 until the Cisti are in bloom. Nearly the whole glory of an Eng- 

 lish April and May is derived from plants which, universal with 

 us, are scarcely, or not all, known in the South, except as moun- 

 tain plants. We may count on our fingers the few ornaments of 

 our spring which are common to us with the Mediterranean pro- 

 vinces of France. They possess the Celandine and the Sweet 

 Violet in abundance. They have our Daisy, and our three com- 

 mon Buttercups, R. repens, R. acris, and R. hulbosus. Car da- 

 mine praiensis is found, but not, as with us, in almost every wood 



