BROOK MAGIC 



to transplant a good-sized cinnamon fern. 

 You will fail, unless you have brought 

 an axe along too, for the seemingly 

 herbaceous plant has an underground 

 trunk, sometimes two or three feet in 

 diameter, almost as solid and firm in 

 texture as that of a tree. 



The fern shows no blossom to the 

 world of butterfly or moth, no fruit for 

 the delectation of fox or field mouse. 

 The curious little dots growing along the 

 margins of the leaves, which we call 

 " fern seed " by courtesy, grow no fern 

 when planted. They simply grow a little 

 primitive leaf form which curiously im- 

 itates a blossom in its functions and 

 produces a new fern. 



But the witch-hazel is stranger yet in 

 its ways. In the spring, when it should 

 by all tokens of the plant world be put- 

 ting out blossoms, it is busy growing 



