WILD FLOWEBS OF WTNTEB. 243 



Christmas Eose (Helleborus niger) stands like a flake 

 of snow, amid its dark green leaves ; and though, like 

 the aconite, scarcely an English wild flower, we are 

 glad to welcome them " as a token to the wintry earth 

 that beauty liveth still." 



At this season the Ferns, Lichens, and Mosses are 

 in full fructification, and form beautiful objects of 

 investigation. On old walls, or springing from the 

 decaying roots of trees, the Common Polypody (Poly- 

 podium vulgare) may be found, and on the back of its 

 fronds the small orange velvet buttons. On the 

 Hart's-tongue (Scolopendrium vulgare) the seeds have 

 a longer form. On the Maidenhair Spleenwort (As- 

 plenium trichomanes), common on old walls, they are 

 minute black dots. On the Blechnum boreale, the 

 Hard Fern, with its wiry roots, they are more diffused. 

 Each species has a distinctive mark of its own on the 

 fronds waving in the breeze, or hiding in the shady 

 nook. 



But what shall we say of the Mosses, eight hundred 

 species of which have been discovered ? Each minute 

 plot of vegetation is a little world of its own ; but it 

 requires a microscope to see their full beauty. They 

 spring forth on newly formed soils; they appear in 



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