308 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



one gladly welcomes. In colour it is of a dark green 

 and the fronds are very glossy. It bears two 

 entirely different types of frond, the barren and the 

 fertile, and what may be held missing in feathery 

 grace is entirely made up to us in its simplicity of 

 form, and what we may almost call strength of 

 character. In circumstances propitious to its welfare 

 these fronds may be over two feet in length, these 

 favouring conditions being abundant moisture and 

 considerable shade. We have ordinarily found it 

 thriving best in stiff clay, but it is by no means 

 confined to this. The tall spore-bearers, rising from 

 the centre of the plant, when they have fulfilled their 

 mission, wither away, but the barren fronds are ever- 

 green, and form striking rosettes of foliage. 



The scale fern is a quaint little species. Its 

 fronds are rarely more than some six inches long, 

 but are striking from the marked contrast in appear- 

 ance of their upper and lower surfaces ; the former 

 soft and velvet-like to the touch, and of a bluish- 

 green, while the latter is densely covered with 

 reddish-brown scales that give it an almost shaggy 

 appearance. It may be found growing on rock, but 

 seems to have a special fondness for old walls. 

 Vitruvius tells us that in the Isle of Crete, near 

 a certain river, the flocks and herds were found 

 without spleens because they browsed on this herb, 

 while those on the opposite bank were unscathed, 

 since there was there no scale fern to work them 



