THE RUSHES, GRASSES, AND FERNS. 281 



much attention. Their elegant forms and fresh 

 colours make them general favourites. A little care 

 will cause them to flourish in our rooms, even in 

 the heart of large cities and towns, the greater 

 part of the year ; and we know of few objects 

 which cheer the eye more than a well-kept 

 Wardian case of ferns. But in our rambles in 

 the woods and lanes, how their presence lends 

 interest ! The very Brakes (Pteris aquilina), 

 abundant and rampant though they be, are among 

 the most elegant of natural objects. Singularly 

 enough, though they grow so readily where one 

 would hardly expect it, in the stoniest places, on 

 the barrenest soils, and where they have to compete 

 with myriads of other plants for even a foothold, 

 the brakes are among the most difficult to rear 

 artificially. A more capricious fern, in this respect, 

 does not exist in our English flora. The germination 

 and earlier development of ferns are better known 

 now than they formerly were; and, what is very 

 remarkable, their earlier stages resemble the fully 

 developed condition of cryptogamous plants lower 

 in organisation than themselves. For instance, the 

 earlier stages in the life-history of our commonest 

 ferns are so like the Liver-worts, and especially the 

 Marchantia, that we have known them to be taken 

 for the latter plants, even in greenhouses, where 

 practical gardeners attended on them ! In this 

 respect, therefore, ferns follow the same law as 

 universally prevails among the higher classes of 



