ASnUIUM FRAGRANS. SWEET SllIELD-l'ERN. 83 



Parry's report. One of the more recent discoverers, INIr. C. G. 

 Pringle, who saw it growing- on Mount Mansfield, X'ermont, in a 

 letter to the writer under date of April 13, 1S79, gives so excel- 

 lent a description of how the plant appears in its native home 

 that we are tempted to quote it here : " In the several stations 

 oiAspidiuni frao-raus among the Green Mountains, which I have 

 explored, the plant is always seen growing from the crevices or 

 on the narrow shelves of dry cliffs — not often such cliffs as are 

 exposed to the sunlight, unless it be on the summits of the 

 mountains, but usually such cliffs as are shaded by firs, and 

 notably such as overhang mountain rivulets and waterfalls. 

 When I visit such places in summer, the niches occupied by the 

 plants are quite dry. I think it would be fatal to the plant it 

 much spray should fall on it during the season of its active 

 growth. When )ou enter the shade and solitude ot the haunts 

 of this fern its presence is betrayed by its resinous odor: looking 

 up the face of die cliff, usually mottled with lichens and moss, 

 you see it often far above your reach hanging against the rock, 

 masses of dead brown fronds, the accumulations of many years, 

 preserved by the resinous principle which pervades them ; for 

 the fronds as they disport regularly about the elongating caudex, 

 fall right and left precisely like a woman's hair. Above the 

 tuft of drooping dead fronds which radiate from the centre of 

 the plant, grow from six to twenty green fronds, which represent 

 the growth of the season, those of the preceding year dying 

 towards autunm." Its filical companions in this locality are 

 Cystoptcris fragilis, Polypodiiuii vulgarc, and Woodsia Ilvensis. 



The observations of Dr. Parry and Mr. Pringle not only 

 interest us in the pen-picture of the home of our sweet-scented 

 shield-fern, but will be very useful to those who desire to cul- 

 tivate it. It has been under culture in English gardens since 

 1820, and is still popular with the hardy fern growers there, not- 

 withstanding the influx of new favorites. A writer on hardy 

 cultivated ferns in the Gardener s CJironiclc for February 8, 1879, 

 says it is regarded there as "a charming little species, very sweet- 



