WILDWOOD WAYS 



adamant with frost, but the polypodys 

 swayed in the biting wind as jauntily as 

 they had in the soft airs of summer and 

 were as green and unharmed by the win- 

 ter thus far as the Christmas ferns had 

 been. 



While I gazed at them, admiring their 

 toughness and courage, my eye caught 

 a bit of greenery on the rock high 

 above and I had found the second 

 unexpected fern of my winter day's 

 hunt, for there from a crevice dripped 

 the rounded, finely crenate, dark green 

 pinnse of Asplenium trichomanes, the 

 maidenhair spleenwort. 



Many a day during the summer had I 

 sat on that ledge, listening to the prattle 

 of the brook down the glen and watching 

 the demoiselle flies flit coquettishly up 

 and down stream while the dragonflies 

 with masculine directness darted hither 

 ft 



