i 4 8 THE WOOD FERNS. 



cept by some sort of a ladder. But it was so unlike 

 any other species with its dry, curling, snuff-coloured 

 fronds of last year, that I knew it was the one I wanted. 

 ... Its chief characteristics are, first, that peculiar ap- 

 pearance of the old fronds: you couldn't curl them 



more gracefully than they 

 appear drooping over the 

 edge of the rocks ; second, 

 the glutinous fronds grass 

 and leaves adhere to them ; 



A Fruiting Pinna. - . , . . . .. 



third, its peculiar fragrance. 



Gray says aromatic ; that doesn't half tell the story. I 

 gathered a clump of it on the cliff and dropped it down 

 in my pocket handkerchief and the perfume lasted for 

 days. I think it is like new mown hay composed largely 

 of sweetbriar rose leaves. It grows on the dryish cliff 

 sides where anything else would be scorched by the 

 sun's heat. Look for a place where there is a bare cliff, 

 overhanging, a little, perhaps, so that the rain cannot 

 reach it and up above all the trees so that it can have 

 no shade at all, and if you find a fern there, test it by its 

 fragrance, its stickiness and its beautiful brown curls." 

 The fragrance has also been likened to that of primroses, 

 strawberries and raspberries and the plant is known 

 sometimes as the sweet polyody. 



The greater part of the fragrant fern's range is north 

 of the United States. It has been found in a few ele- 

 vated stations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 

 New York, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Northward it 

 extends to Alaska and Greenland and is reported to be 

 the commonest species in some districts. It is found 

 also in Northern Europe and Asia and is there occasion- 

 ally used as a tea, being valued as an anti-scorbutic. Al. 



