runup vi FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE 



AND USUALLY SIMILAR ; FRUIT-DOTS ROUND 



the very spirit of the waterfall, all its life and 

 grace, as it springs from the dripping ledges, cloth- 

 ing them with a diaphanous garment of delicate 

 green which vies with their neighboring veil of 

 white, now pouring over some rocky shelf a solid 

 but silent mass of pale luxuriant foliage, now trailing 

 down the cliff its long, tapering fronds, side by side 

 with silvery strands of water, close to tufts of wind- 

 blown, spray-tipped hare-bells. 



Although the plant is never seen at its best save 

 in some such neighborhood as this, its slender, feath- 

 ery fronds are always possessed of singular grace 

 and charm, whether undulating along the dried 

 rocky bed of a mountain brook or bending till their 

 slender tips nearly touch the rushing stream or 

 growing quite away from the rocks which are 

 their natural and usual companions among the 

 moss-grown trunks and fallen trees of the wet 

 woods. 



I know no other fern, save the climbing fern, 

 which is so vine-like and clinging. In reality its 

 stalk and midrib are somewhat brittle, yet this brit- 

 tleness does not prevent its adapting itself with sup- 

 ple and exquisite curves to whatever support it has 

 chosen. 



In its manner of growth, as well as in its slender, 

 tapering outline, the Bulblet Bladder Fern is so in- 

 dividual that there can be no difficulty in identifying 

 the full-sized fertile fronds, even in the absence of 

 the little bulbs which grow on the under side of the 



frond, usually at the base of the pinnae. The sterile 



196 



