174 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



less, I have four times looked for the seed in the 

 night of Midsummer Eve, and I have found early 

 in the morning before daybreak small black seeds 

 like poppy seeds on cloths and on the broad leaves 

 of mullein beneath the stems in varying quantities. 

 ... I have used no charm or spell in this matter, 

 but have looked for the seeds without any super- 

 stition and have found them. One year, however, 

 I found more than another, and I have sometimes 

 been out without success. I have not gone alone 

 to fetch the seeds, but have taken two others with 

 me, and have made a great fire in an unfrequented 

 spot, and let it burn all through the night. How 

 the thing came to pass, and what secret nature 

 intends to reveal by it, I cannot tell. I have 

 stated all this because all our teachers describe the 

 fern as being without seeds." Reading between 

 the lines, how clearly the solemnity of the occasion 

 stands confessed, and the heartening comfort of the 

 " great fire " in the murky woodland shades ! 



The so-called seeds were, doubtless, what are 

 now written " spores " ; and it was not surprising, 

 until the microscope came to disclose it, that the 

 riddle of the germination of ferns should have 

 remained so long unsolved. Gerard gives figures 

 of a good many species, and speaks of finding 

 "jagged hart's tongue" growing in a friend's 

 garden ; but ferns were only of value in those 

 days for their medicinal virtues, and perhaps for 

 the making of capillaire never as garden plants. 

 There is no reference to them at all, as far as 

 I can remember, in the " Paradisus Terrestris." 



The old feeling that there was something un- 



