THE GREEN WORLD 227 



and gone, it does not show its full extent of green, 

 but now, before its branches, platform-like, are spread 

 to their utmost, is the time to see how great is the 

 number of fern stems, and how thick they stand in 

 many places. Scores of these stems, springing beauti- 

 fully straight from the soil, can be counted on a yard 

 or two of favouring soil. It is impossible to walk 

 in the oak woods of the New Forest early in June 

 without bruising and crushing, almost at every step, 

 sappy stems of bracken, with their singed-looking 

 tops. 



Instinctively knowing this, we may now and then 

 try to pick a way between these thick-spread stems; 

 for the brake fern, at this stage, has somewhat the 

 look of a feeling, half-conscious thing, where its soft, 

 brown, clawed tip is unrolling into frond form, so 

 that it is repugnant to us to stamp upon it; but 

 the attempt to thread a way between the stems 

 has soon to be given up, unless we confine ourselves 

 to the paths or tracks through the wood. Even 

 in many of these trodden spots bracken is seen 

 springing from the hard surface, for, like the snow- 

 drop in February and the chervil, this fern in May 

 and June will thrust through a beaten-down surface, 

 lifting and pushing aside not only dead leaves and 

 wood litter, but hard, caked clay or gravel. 



For its purpose of bursting through the soil when 

 the surface of the earth is baked and hard from want 

 of rain and other causes, the bracken fern is in a 



