THE SPLEENWORTS. 269 



It grows in the moist interstices which lie between 

 the fragments of stone. But it mostly loves a 

 rocky home in immediate contiguity to the soft 

 vapour of the wild cascade. It delights to grow 

 in the tiny trickle caused by percolating water. 

 Little wiry fibrous roots, that plunge within 

 the hearts of rocks in search of the soft 

 veins of leaf-mould ; a black, tufted root-stock, 

 from which start the lovely fronds; a short 

 stipes, purple at its base, but beyond of a vivid 

 and delightful green ; a rachis of the same de- 

 lightful green, and on each side of it, placed in 

 alternation, a row of tiny-stemmed, egg-shaped, 

 saw-edged leaflets, diminishing in size as the tiny 

 frond tapers to a point. Each root-stock produces 

 these pretty little fronds in thick clusters, so that 

 a luxuriant specimen of the plant presents a de- 

 , lightfully fresh appearance. The fronds grow to 

 various heights, their luxuriance depending on the 

 favourable or unfavourable nature of the situation 

 in which the plant grows. Sometimes they are not 

 more than an inch in height ; sometimes they are 

 two or three, occasionally as much as eight or ten. 



