CROUP V fERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR ; 

 SPORANGIA IN LINEAR OR OBLONG FRUIT-DOTS 



When up and clambering all about, 



The Traveller's Joy flings forth 

 Its snowy awns, that in and out 



Like feathers strew the earth : 

 Fair are the tufts of meadow-sweet 



That haply blossom nigh ; 

 Fair are the whirls of violet 



Prunella shows hard by ; 

 But nor by burn in wood, or vale, 



Grows anything so fair 

 As the plumy crest of emerald pale, 

 That waves in the wind, and soughs in the gale, 

 Of the Lady Fern, when the sunbeams turn 



To gold her delicate hair.'' 



The other, which I give in full, on account of its 

 quaintness, appeared in the Botanical Looker-out of 

 Edwin Lees: 



" When in splendor and beauty all nature is crown'd, 

 The Fern is seen curling half hid in the ground. 

 But of all the green brackens that rise by the burn, 

 Commend me alone to the sweet Lady Fern. 



" Polypodium indented stands stiff on the rock. 

 With his sori exposed to the tempest's rough shock ; 

 On the wide, chilly heath Aquilina stands stern. 

 Not once to be named with the sweet Lady Fern. 



" Filix-mas in a circle lifts up his green fronds 

 And the Heath Fern delights by the bogs and the ponds ; 

 Through their shadowy tufts though with pleasure I turn, 

 The palm must still rest with the fair Lady Fern. 



" By the fountain I see her just spring into sight. 

 Her texture as frail as though shivering with fright ; 

 To the water she shrinks — I can scarcely discern 

 In the deep humid shadows the soft Lady Fern. 

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