26 



FOEEST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



sometimes so intricately interwoven that the traveller 

 becomes fairly pounded for the nonce. 



This tangled appearance, however, is an attribute of 

 the spruce woods ; there is a much more orderly arrange- 

 ment under the hemlocks. These grand old trees seem 

 to bury their dead decently, and long hillocks in the 

 mossy carpet alone mark their ancestors' graves, which 

 are generally further adorned by the evergreen tresses 

 of the creeping partridge-berry, or the still more delicate 

 festoons of the capillaire. 



The busy occupation of all available space in the 

 American forest by a great variety of shrubs and herba- 

 ceous plants, constitutes one of its principal charms — the 

 multitudes of blossoms and delicate verdure arisino: from 

 the sea of moss to greet our eyes in spring, little maple 

 or birch seedlings starting up from prostrate trunks or 

 crannies of rock boulders, with wood violets, and a host 

 of the spring flora. The latter, otherwise rough and 

 shapeless objects, are thus invested with a most pleasing 

 appearance — transformed into the natural flower vases of 

 the woods. The abundance of the fern tribe, again, lends 

 much gi-ace to the woodland scenery. In the swamp the 

 cinnamon fern, 0. cinnamomea, with 0. interrupta, attain 

 a luxuriant growth ; and the forest brook is often almost 

 concealed by rank' bushes of royal fern (0. regalis). 

 Eocks in woods are always topped with polypodium, 

 whilst the delicate fronds of the oak fern hang from their 

 sides. Filix foemina and F. mas are common every- 

 where, and, with many others of the list, present appa- 

 rently inappreciable differences to their European repre- 

 sentatives. 



There is a beauty peculiar to this interesting order 



