338 FERNS. 



their long foot-stalks being thickly fringed with bristly 

 brown scales. Then occurs a noble species, Gymnop- 

 teris nicotiancefolia, of which the leaves, composed of 

 a few pinnae, large, broad, and oval, like the leaves of 

 the tobacco-plant, spring from a creeping root-stem ; 

 while the fertile fronds, separate as in the former cases, 

 and clothed with seed, stand erect and crowded. 



From the crevices of the loose stone fences, from 

 the angles of the buttresses of the buildings, and from 

 the decaying walls of such as are fast going to ruin, 

 a painfully frequent sight in this land, a multitude 

 of species, reminding us in their elegantly arching 

 habit, and their ininutely divided outline, of our own 

 Lastreas and Polysticlmms, spring out. Aspidium 

 patens is here, with its long, slender, deeply-cut 

 pinnae ; and Bleclmum occidentale, with its narrow 

 band of deep brown sori running down the middle of 

 each leaflet; and Pteris grandifolia, whose pinnate 

 arches, of ten feet in curve, transmit the tender green 

 light of the sun through their substance overhead, 

 making the marginal lines of opaque sori the more 

 conspicuous ; and Polypodium Paradisce, a lovely 

 form, whose multitudinous narrow leaflets, symmetri- 

 cally parallel, are studded each with its double row of 

 pale yellow beads ; and P, effusum, whose leaves re- 

 semble triangular feathers of a lively green hue ; and 

 Asplenium prcemorsum, every part of which is narrow 

 and linear ; and, lo ! at length we stumble on our 

 own familiar Brake. Can it be ? Can Pteris aquilina 

 be a denizen of these tropic plains ? Yes ; it grows 



