" It is very pleasant and cheerful nowadays, when the ibrown and 

 withered leaves strew the ground and almost every plant is fallen, to 

 come upon a patch of Polypody .... on some rocky hillside in the 

 woods, where in the midst of dry and rustling leaves, defying frost, it 

 stands so freshly green and full of life. My thoughts are with the 

 polypody a long time after my body has passed. . . . The forest 

 floor is covered with a thick coat of moist brown leaves, but what is 

 that perennial and springlike verdure that clothes the rocks, of small 

 green plumes pointing various ways. It is the cheerful community of 

 the polypody. It survives at least as the type of vegetation to remind 

 us of the spring that shall not fail. THOREAU. 



