A PARADISE OF FERNS. 



pendr-ium vulgare), one of the most easily recog- 

 nizable of the British Ferns, with its crumpled 

 tongue-shaped frond, growing sometimes to the 

 length stem and frond together of three feet. 

 The thick and rich-looking yet leathery texture of 

 the fronds of the Hartstongue, with their deep and 

 shining green colour, make them look exquisitely 

 cool and refreshing, rising up out of the dark 

 hedge-bank as they do in thick and clustering tuftf- 

 sometimes almost erect, at other times grace- 

 fully bending backwards their shining, leathery 

 tips. Underneath the curling tongue-shaped 

 fronds, lie the curious rows of seeds (spores), 

 whose rich reddish-brown colour beautifully con- 

 trasts with the deep, shining green of the frond. 



The Hartstongue is a bold free plant. You will 

 find it growing almost everywhere in Devonshire : 

 on the tops and at the sides of walls; hanging 

 from old ruins ; growing out from the sides of 

 cliffs and deserted quarries ; dropping down its 

 long green fronds into the cool and limpid water 

 of road-side wells hewn out of the rock : often ex- 

 posed to the full blaze of the sun, but always in 

 such cases dwindled down to a tiny size. The 



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