BRACKEN. 25 



to have impressed the fern-loving gardener, is that the fronds 

 became at first shrivelled, then scorched, and a libel upon their 

 race. And so for a few years they dragged out a miserable 

 existence, and then died and made way for fresh victims to 

 man's blind ignorance. If we cannot offer them such substi- 

 tutes for the natural conditions as will at least enable these 

 beautiful plants to exist in tolerable health, we have no right to 

 despoil their natural habitats of them. 



The chief disqualification that the Bracken suffers from is 

 that it is too common, too plentiful, too ubiquitous. It grows 

 over great expanses of forest land, fringes the wood and copse, 

 competes with heather and gorse on the open heath and moor- 

 land, and covers many a hedgebank. It grows in such profusion 

 that it is worth while in autumn to harvest its dry fronds and 

 stack them after the manner of hay, to be used for bedding 

 cattle. And yet, in spite of its commonness and its reputation 

 as a coarse plant, it can be so grown as Nature herself 

 frequently grows it that it is one of the most graceful and 

 delicate of all our native ferns ! 



The Bracken is like the Polypodies, inasmuch that it forms 

 no crown, but has a fleshy creeping stout stem from which the 

 great fronds arise at somewhat distant intervals ; but unlike 

 the Polypodies, the Bracken stem creeps underground instead 

 of along the surface. One might assume from this fact that the 

 Bracken is less hardy than those species that run along the 

 ground or have exposed crowns. If not less hardy, it needs the 

 protection of the earth to make up for the covering of chaffy 

 scales that most of the aerial crowns and undeveloped fronds 

 are provided with. We ought, perhaps, to put the case the 

 other way and say that the aerial crowns and rootstocks have 

 developed protective scales, because during winter they have 

 not the shelter of the soil as the Bracken has. Another modifi- 

 cation produced by the different habit is seen in the shape of 

 the unexpanded frond. Whilst that of the aerial species is 



