" The thick and rich-looking yet leathery texture of the fronds of 

 the Hart's-tongue, with their deep and shining green colour, make 

 them look exquisitely cool and refreshing, rising up out of the dark 

 hedge-bank as they do, in thick and clustering tufts sometimes 

 almost erect, at other times gracefully bending backward their shin- 

 ing leathery tips. . . . You will find it growing almost everywhere in 

 Devonshire : on the tops and at the sides of walls ; hanging from old 

 ruins ; growing out from the sides of cliffs and deserted quarries ; and 

 dropping down its long green fronds into the cool and limpid water of 

 roadside wells hewn out of the rock." FRANCIS. 



