IRISH FERNS. 333 



same lane presently leads into an open wood, where, 

 beneath the great timber-trees, sparsely scattered, 

 enormous crowns of the Male-fern and the Dilated 

 Buckler-fern grow up on all sides, forming vast basket- 

 shaped hollows of seven or eight feet in diameter, of 

 which the individual fronds attain a length of five 

 feet by actual admeasurement. 



Or, let him visit sweet Killarney, that lake of 

 renown, which is perhaps the most lovely little bit of 

 scenery in the whole of the three kingdoms ; and, 

 making his way along the sinuous channel beneath 

 the towering Eagle's Nest, wakening the lingering 

 echoes as he goes, emerge into the wild Lake of 

 Muckreep, and land where the flashing cataract pours 

 down the waters of the Devil's Punchbowl from a 

 height of seventeen hundred feet. Here, growing on 

 the Turk rocks, ever wet with the spray of the falls, 

 he will see in abundance the filmy pellucid fronds of 

 the Irish Bristle-fern ; the broad, triangular laminae 

 luxuriantly depending from their thousand tangled 

 rhizomes, as if fastened with iron wire to the slippery 

 shelves and ledges. 



Or, let him follow in the steps of Mr Foot, and ex- 

 plore the wild glens and vertical clefts in the lime- 

 stone rocks of West Clare, where the Frail Bladder- 

 fern grows to an unusual size, and contrasts, in its 

 peculiar green hue and delicate texture, with the 

 bright colours of Gentiana verna and Geranium san- 

 guineum, and mingles with whole sheets of the rare 

 Dryas octopetala. Here the Marine Spleenwort grows 



