24 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS. 



This is the only native representative of the genus Adiantum, 

 of which there are many species in all the temperate and tropical 

 regions of the earth. The present species is found all along the 

 western and southern sides of Europe, and is specially abundant 

 along the Mediterranean and in the isles of the Atlantic, as 

 well as in more distant parts of the earth. The name is an 

 old Greek one, and derived from adiantos, dry, in allusion to 

 the non-wettable character of the foliage. The species-name, 

 captllus-veneris, means the hair of Venus, and is sufficiently 

 explained by a reference to the rachis and its branches. 



Bracken (Pteris aqutiina). 



There are those who make a distinction between Bracken 

 and Ferns, the former, as they commonly find it growing on the 

 exposed heath, being regarded as too coarse and large to come 

 into the same category with the Maidenhair, the Lady Fern, 

 and the Spleenworts, which exhibit all the grace and delicacy 

 that are rightly regarded as characteristics of the Fern family. 

 Much, however, depends upon environment ; and the delicate 

 Lady Fern and the graceful Broad Buckler-fern, if taken from 

 the moist shelter of the wood and exposed to drying wind and 

 scorching sun on the open heath, lose all their delicacy and 

 grace. Conversely, if we seek the Bracken in the right place, 

 that is to say in the woods, where there is a light leafy canopy 

 overhead and a good depth of leaf-mould under foot, the tender 

 seven-feet fronds exhibit but slight resemblance to the rough 

 and stunted Bracken of the exposed common. This pheno- 

 menon of the influence of environment is one that ought to 

 have impressed itself upon the mind of the public years ago, 

 for many thousands of woodland ferns have been torn up by 

 the roots where they were things of beauty, and transported to 

 the dry sunny borders of exposed gardens where they were 

 expected to retain their attractiveness. The result, which ought 



