180 THE FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 



pound leaves of other plants. Herein Nature affords an 

 example of a compound assemblage of parts, in a pleas* 

 ing uniformity that far exceeds the most ingenious de- 

 vices of art. Apparently similar arrangements are seen 

 in the leaves of the poison hemlock, the milfoil, and the 

 Roman wormwood ; but their formality is not so beau- 

 tifully blended with variety as that of the compound- 

 leaved ferns. 



In tropical countries some of the ferns are woody plants, 

 attaining the size of trees, rising with a branchless trunk 

 over fifty feet in height, and then spreading out their 

 leaves like a palm-tree. Hence they are singularly at- 

 tractive objects to the traveller from the North, by the 

 sight of which he seems to be carried back to the early 

 ages of the world, before the human race had a foothold 

 upon the earth. Here we know them only as an inferior 

 tribe in relation to size, the tallest seldom exceeding two 

 or three feet in height. Everything in their appearance 

 is singular, from the time when they first push up their 

 purple and yellow scrolls above the surface of the soil, 

 covered with a sort of downy plumage, to the time when 

 their leaves are spread out like an eagle's wings, and their 

 long spikes of russet flowers, if they may be so called, 

 stand erect above the weeds and grasses, forming a beau- 

 tiful contrast with the pure summer greenness of all other 

 vegetation. 



There are few plants that exceed in beauty and delicacy 

 of structure the common maiden-hair. The main stem is 

 of a glossy jet, and divided into two principal branches, 

 that produce in their turn several other branches from 

 their upper side, resembling a compound pinnate leaf 

 without its formality. In woods in the western part of 

 this State is a remarkable fern called the walking leaf. 

 It derives its name from a singular habit of striking root 

 at the extremities of the fronds, giving origin to new 



