JAMAICA LOWLANDS. 339 



all over the world. The Australian savage eats its 

 spongy root ; the elephant crushes it with his massive 

 foot in Ceylon; the axis deer hides in its bowery 

 shadow in Nepaul ; the ostrich lays its great eggs 

 upon its debris in Nubia, as did the Dodo of old in 

 the Mauritius ; the Indian in North America sleeps 

 on its gathered fronds, as does his brother in Brazil, 

 and his cousin in the isles of the Pacific ; so that we 

 need not wonder to find its well-known visage here. 



At a somewhat higher elevation we find Poly- 

 podium laclmopodium, or the shaggy-footed ; a hand- 

 some species with broad, triangular leaves minutely 

 divided, and densely clothed with a red down of close, 

 hair-like scales ; and P. divergens, one of noble dimen- 

 sions, wide-spreading, and four times cut. Some fine 

 Pterides also grow here, such as P. liirsuta, exceedingly 

 rough with red down on every part ; and P. sulcata, 

 with an outline not unlike that of our ownfilix mas. 

 Then we see Lastrea villosa, whose fronds, four yards 

 long, block up the narrow lane, as they spring from 

 their stout stem ; and Elaplioglossum crassinerve,likG a 

 massive leathery hart's-tongue, crumpled at the margin, 

 but with the soriferous fronds wholly brown beneath, 

 and with a root which creeps over the mossy stones. 



Where the path winds round the base of the lime- 

 stone cliffs, we find species of another character. 

 Here, out of the narrow clefts and chinks, project the 

 delicate Gymnogrammas, some of which display that 

 peculiar furniture of farinose powder that gives so 

 much attractiveness to their delicate fronds, and for 



