12 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



A SURREY FERN-LAND. 



By Edward Step. 



TpERNS! Yes, the parish is full of them, if you 

 -*- know where to look. It's of no use to search 

 the banks along the road for them ; the hawkers 

 and excursionists from London have cleared them. 

 " Done a deal of harm? " Yes, I suppose they 

 have, but so far as the hawkers are concerned you 

 can scarcely blame them. Their's is only a form 

 of business enterprise, and when did you know an 

 enterprising business man stay his hand out of 

 sentimental regard for other people's enjoyment ? 

 Suppose they do spoil the look of the country in 

 their desire to get a living, they are only placing 

 themselves upon a level with persons who have not 

 the excuse of ignorance or want to plead. There 

 are those who are not content with taking ferns and 

 primroses, but who must steal the very banks and 

 wastes upon which these plants have grown. 



In truth, if the hawker were the only enemy the 

 fern had we might smile at his feeble efforts. The 

 great cause of the diminution of ferns near the 

 large towns is to be found in the extensive drainage 

 works that have been carried out in recent years. 

 Much of the rain that falls upon the earth is carried 

 off at once by means of drains ; trees are cut down 

 and swamps drained. Just look at these figures : 

 Professor Lindley calculated the number of spores 

 borne by a single frond of hart's-tongue fern (Scolo- 

 pendrium vulgare) to be 18,000,000 ! Now, supposing 

 there are on an average only five spore-bearing fronds 

 to each hart's-tongue plant, that gives you a possible 

 progeny of 90,000,000 hart's-tongues derived in one 

 year from a single parent. My contention is that, 

 providing the natural conditions of humidity in soil 

 and atmosphere were maintained, we could defy the 

 rapacious collectors so long as they left us one 

 solitary fern of each species on our island. In a 

 few years ferns would be as abundant as ever. 



Now come with me up this sandy hillside, and I 

 will show you where the ferns grow. Observe, 

 that it faces north-east, and, therefore, only gets 

 the morning sun upon it. From the village it 

 appears to be a regularly sloping height covered 

 with bramble, bracken and gorse ; but when you 

 have climbed some seventy or eighty feet you will 

 notice that its sides are deeply scored and terraced 

 where sand and gravel digging has been carried on. 

 The hill, which has a very extensive broken top, is 

 like a huge sponge, and full of splendid water. 

 Early in the morning you may see the mists hang- 

 ing over the tops and drenching the heather and 

 furze with moisture, which keeps the sand well filled. 

 The water oozes out of its sides in a thousand tiny 

 springs, and trickling down these make the condi- 

 tions necessary for fern-growth. And so it happens 



that, on all these terraces and under the bushes all 

 over the hillside, you will find fine specimens of the 

 lady-fern (Atkyrium filix-fcemina) with finely divided 

 fronds of an almost transparent texture. The lady- 

 fern is vastly fond of growing where she can send 

 down her roots and dip the red sponge-like masses 

 of root-hairs right into the flowing water. 



Do you see yonder house to the right of the 

 church, below us ? It is the vicarage, and its 

 somewhat prim, terraced garden is pleasant to 

 look down upon. At the farther end of the garden 

 such a spring breaks out and trickles into a shallow 

 well, lined with rough sandstone. If you look into 

 and around that rough cistern, you will find that 

 the lady-fern has taken entire possession of it. 

 All up the back the stones are hidden by the 

 delicate lace-work of her fronds, and round the 

 margin there is a fringe of them. The beautiful 

 green feathers arch over the water, and their fair 

 forms are reflected in the pure mirror ; and all the 

 stones are thickly covered with lady-ferns in a 

 more or less embryo condition. Surely the water 

 drawn from such a source must be fresher and 

 sweeter than that from an ordinary well ! All this 

 broken ground beside the well, where Mrs.Dewdney 's 

 donkeys browse so contentedly, contains a multi- 

 tude of old lady-ferns among the grass that 

 scarcely anybody suspects, because the donkeys 

 nibble them down as they do the grass and thistles. 

 They are too old and tough to be killed by this 

 treatment, and their stems are so strongly anchored 

 to the ground, connected together in such great 

 masses, that if the hawker were to discover them, 

 to acquire them would demand more labour than 

 would be profitable. 



Below the pond, again, in the swampy ground, 

 there are hundreds of them ; and on the higher 

 ground there are great male-ferns (Nephrodium 

 filix-mas), with robust-looking fronds four or five 

 feet in height, their stems shaggy with golden 

 chaffy scales and their backs rough with the scaly 

 fruits from which the rusty spores drop out, 

 reddening the lower fronds upon which they fall. 

 Our forefathers who named these two ferns had 

 certainly a sense of the fitness of things which 

 they did not equally exhibit when they gave the 

 folk-names to many plants. The male-fern, 

 growing in the dry ditch by the hedge, or in 

 open spaces in the wood, grows straight and tall, 

 its fronds with thick stalks that are strong to 

 withstand wind and sun ; whilst the lady-fern 

 needs protection, and is the weakest of our large 

 ferns. Her thin textured, delicate fronds are so 

 finely sub-divided as to resemble a piece of pale 



