CAMPTOSORUS. RHIZOPHYLLUS, 
WALKING-LEAF. 
NATURAL OFDER, FILICES. 
CAMPTOSORUS RHIZOPHYLLUS, Link.—Fronds auriculate-cordate at the base, lanceolate, with 
a long slender acumination which often takes root at the apex. Frond two to nine inches 
long, and half of an inch to an inch wide, evergreen, sometimes bifid with two acuminations ; 
stipe one to four inches long, slightly margined above, smooth. Sori often half an inch 
in length. (Darlington’s Flora Cestrica. See also Gray’s Manual of the Botany of the 
Northern United States, Chapman’s flora of the Southern United States, and [as Ante- 
gramma rhizophylla\ Wood's Class-Book of Botany. Aliso Eaton’s Lerns of North Amer- 
ica and Williamson’s Ferns of Kentucky.) 
HOSE who are fond of wild Nature, and who love to take 
| her just as she is, fresh from her Maker’s hands, often 
have to thank their favorite poets for beautiful thoughts which 
seem to deeply engrave the scene on the memory, and which 
enable them to recall the pleasant picture at any future time. 
We have just such an impression as we are writing these lines 
on the Walking-leaf Fern, though the reality passed many years 
ago. It was on the Lehigh river in Northern Pennsylvania, 
and far from human habitations. The Pine trees interlaced their 
branches, and little vegetation could exist in the shade beneath ; 
only the trailing yew, and, everywhere on the huge scattered 
rocks, the Walking-leaf fern. It seemed the very suggestion of 
the invocation of the well-known English poet Thomson— 
“To Him, ye vocal gales, 
Breathe soft whose spirit in your freshness breathes ; 
Oh, talk of Him in solitary gloom! 
Where, o’er the rock, the scarcely-waving Pine 
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.” 
It is indeed generally in these sombre, awe-inspiring, rocky 
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