192 mature Stufcies in Berkshire. 



wet feet, there is a corner of this part of the fernery 

 where some fine examples are to be found of a num- 

 ber of the choicest varieties in the collection. It is 

 less than a hundred yards, straight in from the road, to 

 the heart of the swamp which occupies most of these 

 woods. The thicket is filled with that many-named 

 frond which the latest books call the Christmas-fern, 

 alias sword-, shield-, black-, and rock-fern ; one may 

 take his choice of names, — the fern remains the same 

 elegant, dark, glossy evergreen, which florists put in 

 all the church bouquets, and which holds its own 

 against all vicissitudes of weather and season. When 

 we reach the bog, we are in the midst of a profusion 

 of ferns that is almost tropical. Clayton's fern, the 

 cinnamon, the royal, grow rank and tall ; dicksonias 

 crowd thick and fragrant ; and the sensitive-fern 

 fairly carpets the ooze. The silvery spleenwort 

 makes its home here, and Boott's shield-fern, with 

 reddish-gold seed-spots decorating its maturing 

 fronds. But most beautiful of all, a picture of wav- 

 ing grace, grows the glorious ostrich-fern, a circle of 

 out-curving fronds, each one of them as perfect as an 

 ostrich-feather, and all together making a green vase 

 or urn, as beautiful among ferns as the elm among 

 the trees of the meadow. Had I the christening of 

 these varieties, 1 would crown this one with the 

 royal title, for its regal dignity and stateliness. 



One could linger here for hours in contented study 

 of these teeming forms, — if it were not for the mos- 

 quitoes ; but these swarming pests make even a few 



