2O6 THE FANTASIES OF FERNS 



sharp-toothed, like many others, and the seed cases 

 run out from the middle ridge exactly like feather - 

 stitching. What an exquisite, cool moonlight shade 

 of green they spread under the oaks; but why are 

 they not called Feather - stitched Silver Ferns ? 

 Spleenwort is so suggestive of herb tea and a 

 mussed -up liver!" 



Quite out in the open, on the very edge of the 

 wheel-tracks, a mass of the triangular leaves of the 

 Broad Beech Ferns, with keeled lower leaflets, were 

 huddled close around a boulder, as if trying to draw 

 from it all possible shade and moisture. But do 

 the best that they could, now that a sheltering 

 tree had been blown over, the sun beat down upon 

 them fiercely and they were much more contracted 

 and crisped than their brothers growing in the 

 shade. However, they will make a good fight, and 

 come up anew year after year, until some near-by 

 saplings grow tall enough to give them shade and 

 perfect shape again. 



On each side of the lane, where it divides old 

 pastures, waves of delicately cut Ferns followed the 

 old stone walls, and, as it were, broke over them, 

 and then swept toward the wood edge, to be lost 

 in the underbrush. Some of the Ferns were a foot 



