PROIIP IV fERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR; 

 SPORANGIA ON OR BENEATH A REFLEXED MARGIN 



bleaches almost white. Then its slender fronds 

 seem like beautiful wraiths of their former selves. 



The Dicksonia, as he always calls it, is Thoreau's 

 favorite among the ferns. Its fronds are sweet- 

 scented when crushed or in drying, and to their 

 fragrance he was peculiarly sensitive : 



" Going along this old Carlisle road . . . road 

 where all wild things and fruits abound, where 

 there are countless rocks to jar those who venture 

 in wagons; road which leads to and through a great 

 but not famous garden, zoological and botanical, at 

 whose gate you never arrive — as I was going along 

 there, I perceived the grateful scent of the Dick- 

 sonia fern now partly decayed. It reminds me of 

 all up country, with its springy mountain-sides and 

 unexhausted vigor. Is there any essence of Dick- 

 sonia fern, I wonder? Surely that giant, who my 

 neighbor expects is to bound up the Alleghenies, 

 will have his handkerchief scented with that. The 

 sweet fragrance of decay ! When I wade through 

 by narrow cow-paths, it is as if I had strayed into 

 an ancient and decayed herb garden. Nature per- 

 fumes her garments with this essence now espe- 

 cially. She gives it to those who go a-barberrying 

 and on dark autumnal walks. The very scent of it, 

 if you have a decayed frond in your chamber, will 

 take you far up country in a twinkling. You would 

 think you had gone after the cows there, or were 

 lost on the mountains." 



Again : 



"Why can we not oftener refresh one another 

 117 



