TREE PARASITES. 347 



somer certainly, if less abnormal, C. reptans : it is one 

 of those which have a hart's-tongue outline, only more 

 elegantly pointed ; and having the large conspicuous 

 sori running in parallel diagonal bands, while the 

 deep green of the upper face is dotted over with white 

 scales. These leaves, like those of our own polypody, 

 are jointed to a scaly root-stock, which clings to and 

 creeps over the limbs of the trees. And yonder we 

 discern one which we might readily mistake for that 

 familiar tenant of our hedges, a little more luxuriant 

 in dimensions, and a little more pendent : the creep- 

 ing root beautifully speckled with brown or light 

 green, like the body of a snake, gives it a character, 

 however, of its own. It is Polypodium loriceum. 



From a matted mass of heterogeneous foliage 

 rilling the broad fork of two vast cognate limbs in 

 this Santa-Maria tree, a mass in which you might 

 easily distinguish a score of species crowded together, 

 stands up a stout bundle of united stems, from 

 whose summit diverges a crown of short, dark-green, 

 oblong leaves. Beneath they display slanting lines 

 of fructification, set in graduated series, the full- 

 length, half-length, quarter-length, and one or two 

 shorter yet, alternating ; while little leaves are form- 

 ing in a proliferous fashion at the bases of the old. 

 This is Diplazium plantagineum, a curious example 

 of the Spleenwort family. And here we see a still 

 more remarkable member of the same household, 

 seated on the limb of another tree. The leaves a 

 simple oblong, the fertile ones blunt, the others 



