THE BRAKE FERN 



The Brake Fern 



The pine wood on a sombre October afternoon 

 is like some background in "Macbeth." The 

 crowd of bare, straight trunks, darker and darker 

 behind each other till lost in their own gloom, is 

 always joyless looking never more so than on 

 dead-calm, slatey days in autumn. A sure charm 

 of the pine wood is in the varying music of its tree 

 tops ; but on such days this great orchestra of 

 Nature is mute. A wood like this seems the last 

 place where one would go for colour and contrast 

 at the present season ; and yet in certain spots it 

 shows now some of the boldest and most beautiful 

 autumn effects. These are due to the brake fern, 

 which, once it gets root-hold, will establish itself in 

 patches even where the pines are so dense that we 

 can barely see the sky up through them. 



The brake fern is not in every spot beautiful in 

 its autumn dress. In many hedgerows and commons, 

 it simply dries and crumples up, and is undistin- 

 guished till, some sharp night in late autumn or 

 winter, dew and frost combine to set on it a flashing 

 filagree. The reason why one patch of brake fern 

 shrivels and dies without striking colour, whilst 

 another goes through its regular phases of October 

 beauty, is not always clear. Probably exposure to 

 or shelter from sun and wind and wet weather is 

 the general cause ; and yet particular ferns or 

 patches of fern, though exposed to the same elements 



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