PELL^A ATROPURPUREA. 

 DARK PURPLE ROCK-BRAKE. 



NATURAL ORDER, FILICES. 



PELLiEA ATROPURPUREA, Link. — Smoolh except some bristly-chaffy hairs on the midribs and 

 especially on the dark purple and polished stalk and rachis, six to fifteen inches high ; 

 frond coriaceous, pale, once or below twice pinnate; the divisions broadly linear or 

 oblong, or the sterile sometimes oval, chiefly entire, somewhat heart-shaped or else trun- 

 cate at the stalked base; veins about twice forked. Root-stocks short and stout : stipes 

 clustered. (Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States. See also 

 Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States, Wood's Class-Book of Botany, and Wil- 

 liamson's Ferns of Kentucky.) 



lOETS generally sing of ferns in connection with the deep 

 I recesses of gloomy forests; with low damp situations; 



or if with more elevated places, they are where 



" The mist hovers over the fountain and rill. 

 And curls in light folds on the slope of the hill." 



Whenever the fern is mentioned it is usually when shaded 

 ravines or flowery dells are to be adorned ; when the poet strays 

 near some sprayey fountain; or where trickling rills course 

 through some quiet mead. Percival, whose lines we have quoted 

 above, in another place is describing Greece from Mount 

 Helicon ; and, addressing one of the streams, sings: 



" Then be my guide. 

 Wandering Termessus, upward through thy vale. 

 And let me find, beneath the twisted boughs 

 Of these old evergreens, coolness and shade, 

 To make my toil the easier. Darkly rolls 

 Thy current under them, and hollower sounds 

 Thy hidden roar. I just can catch a glimpse 

 Of yon deep pool, dark and mysterious, 

 Sunk in its well of rock ; and now from out 



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