52 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



high heaven on the misty landscape ; then it was that many 

 a footstep was impressed on the damp sod, stealing swiftly 

 and silently towards our lonely growing-places. Legends, 

 too, and those of no ordinary interest, linger around our 

 tribe, whether growing on the rocks of Scandinavia, or 

 beneath the shade of citrons and myrtles ; and hence the 

 Eastern poet sang of ferns as emblems of secresy and 

 friendship. 



With the passing on of years faded, as mountain mists 

 before the dawn, somewhat of the mystery in which old 

 botanists had enveloped us. Men, in later times, who 

 loved our tribe and sought them in their native haunts, 

 discovered a variety of dots or lines on the under-surface of 

 our leaves, and, with this discovery, a truth came obviously 

 on the mind. The seeds, they said, are thus arranged 

 because of the sterile and storm-beaten places on which 

 ferns often grow. But Legend does not readily relinquish 

 her strong-hold, and the fancied power of rendering men in- 

 visible was transferred from the fern-plant to her small seeds. 



