I 62 ASPIDIUM CRISTATUM. CRESIED SHIELD-FERN. 



plants of the species, not half a mile from where the celebrated 

 and sharp-eyed botanist, Thomas Nuttall, often made his home, 

 and on ground over which the writer had often collected plants. 

 This was the more surprising when on a subsequent examination 

 a good number of specimens were found in the vicinity, from 

 whence one was taken to furnish the illustration given here. 

 The incident is of value as showing to the collector that he may 

 not regard his work as completed, though he may be tempted to 

 believe that he has found everything in a certain district. Re- 

 peated examinations may result in finding something he has 

 never seen there before. 



This — the Crested Fern — may be found quite late in the 

 season, long after the flowers are gone, and indeed after 

 many of the ferny race have wholly withered away. It was late 

 in November when the writer made his first acquaintance with a 

 living plant. We had searched in vain for it through a piece of 

 hilly woods, where the golden-rods and asters floated away their 

 filmy-crowned seeds with every step we took. As we descended 

 to lower ground the withered remains of the Cinnamon Fern, 

 the Lady Fern, and the Ratdesnake Grape-Fern could hardly be 

 distinguished from the brown oak and other forest leaves that 

 thickly strewed the ground. There was no sign of living green 

 anywhere till we came to a small swamp in which were growing 

 numerous fine specimens of the Sw^amp Alder and Poison Ash, 

 over which grape vines and round-leaved Smilax made an 

 immense bower, through which the sunlight glimmered, showing 

 numerous buds of the skunk-cabbage already at the surface of 

 the ground, awaiting the earliest breath of spring to fan it 

 into life. Through this thicket a litde stream meandered, its sides 

 covered with Hypnuni, Bryuiu, and other mosses, and springing 

 up among them just one plant of the Crested Fern, which we had 

 started out to find. The enthusiastic plant-collector may not 

 perhaps endow his floral treasures with an actual personality, but 

 yet they seem to talk with him, and tell him stories of the past, 

 or remind him of somethino- that has oone before ; and the dis- 



