358 FERNS. 



rock-work formed of different materials, but each by 

 itself, and thus on a limited scale furnishing materials 

 for geological study. These, so far as we recollect, 

 were Ballycoras clay slate, and granite, gray granite, 

 quartz, red sandstone, conglomerate, tufa, petrified 

 moss, &c. The lower part of the pile is not only 

 irregular, but formed into arched vaults, caves, re- 

 cesses, nooks, and crannies, to suit some sweet little 

 things that modestly like retirement from the glare 

 of bright sunlight ; as the varieties of Killarney fern, 

 and some other of the Trichomanes, and such Hyme- 

 nopTiyllums as Tunbridgense and Wilsoni, and other 

 small ferns and lycopods. Then on the face of the 

 rock were fine specimens of Platyceriums, good foliage 

 of Begonias ; and among other ferns and mosses, we 

 have a vivid recollection of a Platyloma throwing its 

 elegant fronds over red granite. Steps, rude as they 

 ought to be, take you from either side over the top of 

 this rock-work, revealing some rarity and beauty at 

 your feet at every step, until, reaching the top, and 

 surveying the .whole, the wreathed buttresses, the 

 draped arches, and the expanse of the fine foliage of 

 tree-ferns, &c., beneath your eye you might easily 

 imagine you were standing amid the ruins of the 

 buildings of a forgotten race, such as are to be found 

 in Central America, where vegetation in wild melan- 

 choly grandeur is revelling amid, and obliterating, 

 the evidences of a previous power, genius, and civili- 

 zation."* 



* Journal, of Horticulture, March 25, 1862. 



