228 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



way well built ; the soft, swelled top, a bundle which 

 holds in embryo the delicate fronds, is bent or doubled 

 down so that the comparatively tough stem is given 

 the work of making a way for the fern head. Once 

 through the soil, the hoop of the bracken begins to 

 straighten up, but, where the fern grows high in the oak 

 woods the stem dead straight save for the top may 

 shoot up two feet or so before the bend disappears. 

 Now, if the fat, soft little bundle at the top of the 

 stem were carried upright through the earth it 

 might be maimed in piercing a hard surface, just as 

 might the flower-heads of the snowdrop, which, thanks 

 to the same device, can be forced up, made to drive 

 through a hard rolled surface of gravel. 



Brake fern then, like chervil, has this iron will to 

 thrust up through floor of adamant to the light, 

 warmth, and food of the air for breath is food, and 

 the leaf breathes. Perhaps it is as well worth thought 

 as even the quaint method of alternate generations by 

 which fern makes fern ; that charming little story of a 

 secret union that begins with spore, continues with 

 prothallus (heart-shaped quite appropriately), and 

 ends in fern. 



The huge driving will of plants is seen, indeed, 

 more or less in every soft greening thing in May. It 

 is unconscious will, without individuality and without 

 freedom ; and for this reason it is, beyond comparison, 

 more regular and enduring than that which rules our 

 conduct. But though shown in every leaf and root, it 



