C 76 ] 



CINNAMON FERNS IN CLINTONIA 

 SWAMP 



August 23, 1858. I go through [Chntonia Swamp], 

 wading through the luxuriant cinnamon fern, which 

 has complete possession of the swamp floor. Its 

 great fronds, curving this way and that, remind me 

 of a tropical vegetation. They are as high as my 

 head and about a foot wide; may stand higher than 

 my head without being stretched out. They grow 

 in tufts of a dozen, so close that their fronds inter- 

 lace and form one green waving mass. There in the 

 swamp cellar under the maples. A forest of maples 

 rises from a forest of ferns. My clothes are covered 

 with the pale-brown wool which I have rubbed off 

 their stems. 



Journal, xi, 118. 



September 24, 1859. Stedman Buttrick's hand- 

 some maple and pine swamp is full of cinnamon ferns. 

 I stand on the elevated road, looking down into it. 

 The trees are very tall and slender, without branches 

 for a long distance. All the ground, which is per- 

 fectly level, is covered and concealed, as are the 

 bases of the trees, with the tufts of cinnamon fern, 

 now a pale brown. It is a very pretty sight, these 

 northern trees springing out of a groundwork of 



