1 8 THE FERN PARADISE. 



yon projecting spur ! There you may see, far out 

 of your reach, one of the most rare and exquisite of 

 the British ferns the Maidenhair (Adiantum ca- 

 pillus-veneris). Could you venture near enough to 

 grasp it in your hand, you would indeed recognise 

 that it is one of the most beautiful of plants. Its 

 fine black wiry frond-stems, like a dark maiden's 

 hair it is most appropriately named, rise in 

 clusters from its crown, the main frond-stems 

 being branched with smaller and more beautiful 

 hair-like stems, which bear upon their tender 

 points the delicate light-green fan-shaped leaflets. 

 Wandering through the cool lanes of Devonshire 

 3'ou may, too, meet with the fragrant hay-scented 

 Buckler Fern (Lastrea cemuld), which emits so beau- 

 tiful an odour when pressed in the hand ; with the 

 delicately and transparently-leaved Marsh Buckler 

 Fern (Lastrea thelypteris] ; with the Mountain 

 Buckler Fern (Lastrea montand), whose silvery 

 fronds make the air fragrant when you tread upon 

 them in their incipient unrolled state. But these 

 varieties are not to be commonly encountered in 

 every Devonshire lane. And still rarer though 



