WINTER FERN-HUNTING 



looked like long spikes of plumed flowers. 

 No wonder the plant which is common to 

 England also drew the notice of Words- 

 worth, who refers to it as 



" that tall fern, 



So stately, of the queen Osmunda named. 

 Plant lovelier in its own retired abode 

 On Grassmere beach than naiad by the side 

 Of Grecian brook." 



Flowering fern it is rightly named, too, 

 but it had flowered and gone, and I found 

 of all its regal beauty but a single stalk 

 with brown spore-cases held rigidly aloft 

 among a tangle of brown leaves and bog 

 grass. 



Then I looked for the sensitive fern. 

 This with its slender, creeping rootstock 

 sending up single fronds is less woody 

 than any of the others and I began to 

 suspect that it would have disappeared 

 utterly. So the sterile fronds had. 

 75 



