20 WHERE TO FIND FERNS. 



bolder, until every curve and indentation stands out 

 Avith perfect distinctness. At other times the eye is 

 pleased with the wealth of beauty revealed to it by the 

 crowding of graceful ferny forms upon open hill-sides, 

 over sunlit forest glades, or upon the boulder-strewn 

 expanse of some rugged moorland. The country which 

 produces the most beautiful scenery furnishes in greatest 

 .abundance the most lovely forms of fern life ; and ferns 

 Jend additional beauty to lovely scenery. 



Yet ferns are often present in many places without 

 being seen. They are so modest and retiring in habit, 

 that they frequently hide, so to speak, in the most 

 sequestered nooks. But it is always easy to find them 

 when it is known where to look for them. Their powers 

 -of reproduction are so great, the infinitesimal spores are 

 so easily wafted far and wide by the restless winds, when 

 the season of ripening has arrived and the bursting 

 sporangia have set at liberty the multitudes, infinitely 

 vast, of their imprisoned germs, that the presence even 

 of the rarest ferns is always possible, even in places least 

 .suspected to possess them. 



It may generally be assumed that, wherever ferns have 

 been once actually discovered, they will be found again, 

 if not in the immediate vicinity, at least somewhere in 

 the same neighbourhood. Even when well-known 

 habitats of rare ferns have been stripped of all promi- 

 nently visible specimens, the old ferns taken away are 

 almost certain to have had opportunities of shedding 

 their spores before their removal ; and in a year or two, 

 when the minute seedlings have had time to assume 

 ferny forms, they may be looked for in the same spots 

 with a tolerable certainty of finding them, provided the 

 -conditions of growth have not been changed by an 

 .alteration in the character of the habitats. 



With regard to several species of British ferns, the 

 recorded habitats are very few in number, and the species 

 .in question are pronounced to be " rare." But, when it 



