MAIDEN-HAIRS. 345 



wayside stones ; the large triangular or quadrangular 

 pinnules, of a tender, light green, overlapping each 

 other, and diminishing in size regularly to the tip, 

 and the tall rachis, with its angled ramifications of 

 polished ebony, so firm, yet so light and graceful. 

 Finer still is the magnificent A. macrophyllum, with 

 leaflets of similar appearance, but much larger, and 

 more symmetrically triangular, in like manner ele- 

 vated on tall, slender, erect stalks of polished ebony, 

 which rise from a wiry creeping root-stock that in- 

 sinuates itself into the cracks and holl ows of the rough 

 and moss-covered stones. And yet once more, in drier 

 and more open spofe, we discover A. Wilsoni, a Fern 

 whose pinnae, shaped like those of the last-named, are 

 even larger yet, and produced to a long point. There 

 are but one or two pairs of these leaflets, and a very 

 large terminal one, the pinnae here corresponding in 

 form and appearance to the pinnules in the former 

 species, which simplicity gives a very unique character 

 to this fine Fern. 



We may see also a species here, which, from the 

 rhomboidal shape of its pinnae, and their boldly- 

 notched edges, together with the slender, black, erect 

 footstalks, we might readily mistake for an. Adiantum : 

 it is, however, really one of the Spleenworts, though 

 surely a very singular one,- Asplenium zamicefolium, 

 as may be discovered by the brown fructification run- 

 ning in fine, nearly-parallel lines, obliquely across the 

 inferior surface of the leaflets. 



How grand are the giant trees of these primeval 



