FERNS. 29 



But fairer than the lightest bud on spring's fresh couch 



which lies. 

 And fairer than the gentlest flower which glows 'neath 



summer skies ; 



Or autumn's soft and mellowed tints upon the fading tree, 

 Companion of the left, and worn, thy leaf appears to me. 



For I have loved where thou wast reared in greenest 



strength to stray, 

 And mark thy feathery stem upraised o'er lichened ruin 



gray, 



Or in the fairy moonlight bent, to meet the silvering hue, 

 Or glistening yet, when noon was high, with morn's un- 



vanished dew. HOL LINGS. 



The ferns which Humboldt so much admired are 

 not peculiar to America. They are found in almost 

 every part of the known world, and are included in 

 those sixteen forms which chiefly characterize the 

 vegetable physiognomy of the globe. But in no 

 other part are they equally magnificent, and though 

 often rising to the height of thirty or forty feet, they 

 retain the delicate and complex leaflets, the slender 

 stems, and rich brown tracery, which adorn the be- 

 loved ferns of our own green woods, and shady lanes. 

 Assigned by their Creator to the tropical regions, 

 they yet grow best in shady places, or where the 

 ardent beams of the sun are tempered by refreshing 

 breezes. They are often seen nestling in those stu- 

 pendous chasms which seem as if riven by some 

 great convulsion in the mountains ; or waving on 

 their windy ridges ; and in the woody parts of South 

 America are generally found in company with such 

 trees as yield medicinal bark. Here, too, a simi- 

 larity exists between the English and exotic fern. 



