TROIIP III FERTILE FRONDS UNIFORMLY SOMEWHAT LEAF-LIKE, 

 YET DIFFERING NOTICEABLY FKOM STEKILE FRONDS 



pinnse, could be seen, but these were in the minority. 

 A number of very young plants, with little, heart- 

 shaped leaves altogether unlike the mature fronds, 

 were wedged in neighboring crannies. 



As our eyes grew more accustomed to the con- 

 tour and coloring of the cliffs, the success of the 

 day was completed by the discovery of several 

 specimens of the little Rue Spleenwort with tiny 

 fronds flattened against the rock. 



When next I saw the Purple Cliff Brake it 

 seemed to me quite a different fern from the rather 

 awkward plant, the mere sight of which I had wel- 

 comed so eagerly that any unfavorable criticism of 

 its appearance seems ungrateful. 



Again it sprang from limestone cliffs, even more 

 remote and inaccessible though less dangerous than 

 those where I saw it first. These cliffs were so 

 shattered in places that the broken fragments lay in 

 heaps at their base and on the projecting ledges. 

 Here and there a great shaft of rock had broken 

 away and stood like the turret of a castle or the 

 bastion of a fort. Among the shattered fragments 

 high up on the cliff's side the Purple Cliff Brake 

 grew in a luxuriant profusion that was amazing in 

 view of the surroundings. The rigid, erect fronds 

 formed large tufts of greenish-gray foliage that, at 

 a little distance, so blended with their rocky back- 

 ground as to be almost indistinguishable. The 

 fronds usually were much more compound than 

 those I had seen a few weeks before. The separate 

 plants had a vigorous, bushy appearance that did 



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