THE BRACKEN. 125 



its soft crop of leaves, which softly falling soften 

 in decay, and form a spongy bed of mould there 

 the Bracken revels : there its roots delightedly 

 wander through the congenial soil, sending up a 

 miniature forest of delicate-looking fronds, which 

 wave their graceful tips underneath the larger 

 forest growth which shoots up against the sunlight. 

 The Bracken has a creeping root. It is, in fact, 

 a curious kind of root half stem, half root 

 which crawls along horizontally underground. 

 Sometimes, when attracted by soft, congenial soil, 

 this root penetrates deeply into the earth. It 

 has, in fact, been known to go down to as great 

 a depth as fifteen feet. Commonly, however, the 

 depth is much less. If the top soil be sufficiently 

 congenial to the plant, it contents itself with 

 creeping most extensively, however. As it 

 creeps horizontally and its vertical subterranean 

 advance does not interfere with its horizontal pro- 

 gress it throws up at short intervals its beautiful 

 fronds, which first find their way above ground in 

 spring, the time varying with the earliness or late- 

 ness of the season. The creeping roots of the 



