THE STREAM-GARDEN 73 



thralled by the subdued and mysterious poetry of 

 beauty that is a character of these lovely little modest 

 growths of the woodland wilds of our own and other 

 lands. 



Here too, rather more in the open, is the Mountain 

 Avens {Dryas octopetald), and in that moist hollow, 

 almost swampy and always somewhat in shade, is 

 Epigcea repens, the May-flower of New England. 

 Then in the damp grass, more towards the stream, 

 there are here and there tufts of the two Marsh 

 Orchids with flowers of greenish purple, and hand- 

 some clear-cut foliage, the Marsh Helleborine and 

 the broad-leaved Helleborine {Epipactis palustris and 

 E. latifolid). 



In a place like this these beautiful things can be 

 seen and enjoyed at ease, and far better than when 

 they are cramped close together in a smaller space. 

 Here again will be the marsh-loving Ferns, and fore- 

 most among them great groups of the Royal Fern 

 (Osmunda) at the edge of one of the small marshy 

 pools that are deeply fringed and sometimes filled with 

 the pale-green bog-moss Sphagnum. 



These little still pools, some of them only a yard or 

 two across, are not stagnant, for they are constantly 

 fed by the trickle of the springs, and the moisture — 

 scarcely running water — finds its slow way to the 

 stream. Their fringes are a paradise for Ferns. Be- 

 sides the Royal Fern there are two of the largest and 

 most graceful of British Ferns, Asplenimn Filix-fcemina 

 and Nephrodium dilatatum (Dilated Shield Fern), and 



