THE BRACKEN. 







T is no easier to account for the likes and 

 dislikes of ferns, than it is for those of 

 more highly organized beings. Our ferns 

 annually cast their spores by millions 

 upon the wind to be sown broadcast, but 

 the majority have seldom been able to 

 get beyond their rather restricted limits, 

 although the adjacent territory seems just 

 as favourable to their growth. There are 

 a few conspicuous exceptions to this rule, 

 however, such as the cosmopolitan polypody, bladder 

 fern and maidenhair spleenwort, but none of these are 

 at home in so many places as our single representative of 

 the brackens. There are nearly a hundred other species 

 of this genus scattered about the world, but our plant 

 has a wider range, both geographically and altitudinally 

 than all the rest of its family together. 



Wherever the bracken (Pteris aquilina) grows, it forms 

 a conspicuous feature of the landscape. In British song 

 and story it is constantly associated with the wildness 

 and desolation of heath, moor and mountain side. 



<f The heath this night must be my bed 

 The bracken curtain for my head." 



sings Scott, while Cowper, drawing a picture of untamed 

 nature, speaks of 



" The common overgrown with fern, and rough 

 With prickly gorse." 



