FERNS. 53 



Again the crowned prince of English ferns lifted up his 

 voice, and spoke concerning his subject ferns. Beautiful 

 are they (he said), and widely different in their habits from 

 such as grow around : numerous, too, for the entire number 

 of their species is calculated at about two thousand, of 

 which thirty-six are pre-eminent in the British Flora. 



Plants in general have their localities, but my subjects 

 are seen everywhere. You may even find them towards 

 the summits of thigh mountains, in company with a scanty 

 and wiry kind of grass, skirting the snow-drifts, which, 

 descending from still higher regions, have become frozen, 

 and where those plants alone present the aspect of vegeta- 

 tion amid scenes of indescribable sterility. Others cling 

 beside mountain torrents, or else ramble over the surface of 

 dark rocks, and are seen through the clear veil of falling 

 waters. Others, again, grow profusely among the spray of 

 waterfalls, or where small streams, dripping from out some 

 fissure in the rock, heighten the vivid beauty of contiguous 

 mosses, and, falling on groups of fern, cover them with 



