278 



NATURE FOB ITS OWN SAKE 



Fern and 

 bracken. 



Scotch 

 heather. 



flourish, and occasionally, in the spring of the 

 year, one meets with slender-stemmed wild- 

 flowers, looking pale and delicate in their shad- 

 owed homes. The hardy ferns will grow near 

 the bush, but the ground they usually cover is 

 under the forest-trees and in the oak openings. 

 Everywhere, even in the Adirondack forests, 

 their growth is rank. Sometimes they will 

 reach up as high as one's head, but they are 

 usually of knee-high growth and of a yellow- 

 green hue. They do not usually grow well in 

 the sunlight. Even the bracken of the Scotch 

 hills and valleys clusters under the evergreen 

 and the mountain-ash, or hides its roots beneath 

 tall grass. It is a more rusty-looking covering 

 than the American varieties of fern, but is nev- 

 ertheless picturesque. 



The most conspicuous covering of Scotland, 

 however, is the heather. It is a coarse, shaggy 

 under-shrub, growing close to the soil and cov- 

 ering the treeless hills and moors in great fields 

 many miles in extent. It belongs with the 

 dark soil of the peat-beds, the crags of the 

 mountain-peaks, and the low-flying clouds of 

 Scotland, and is seen to advantage in the late 

 summer when it is in bloom. The whole as- 

 pect of the country is then changed by it. One 



