rPDIIP VI FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE 

 " AND USUALLY SIMILAR ; FRUIT-DOTS ROUND 



Thoreau writes of the Polypody with peculiai 

 sympathy : 



" It is very pleasant and cheerful nowadays, when 

 the brown and withered leaves strew the ground 

 and almost every plant is fallen withered, to come 

 upon a patch of polypody ... on some rocky 

 hill-side in the woods, where, in the midst of dry 

 and rustling leaves, defying frost, it stands so 

 freshly green and full of life. The mere greenness, 

 which was not remarkable in the summer, is posi- 

 tively interesting now. My thoughts are with the 

 polypody a long time after my body has passed. 

 . . . Why is not this form copied by our sculp- 

 tors instead of the foreign acanthus leaves and 

 bays ? How fit for a tuft about the base of a col- 

 umn ! The sight of this unwithering green leaf ex- 

 cites me like red at some seasons. Are not wood- 

 frogs the philosophers who frequent these groves ? 

 Methinks I imbibe a cool, composed, frog-like phi- 

 losophy when I behold them. The form of the poly- 

 pody is strangely interesting, it is even outlandish. 

 Some forms, though common in our midst, are thus 

 perennially foreign as the growth of other latitudes. 

 . . . The bare outline of the polypody thrills me 

 strangely. It only perplexes me. Simple as it is, it 

 is as strange as an oriental character. It is quite 

 independent of my race and of the Indian, and of 

 all mankind. It is a fabulous, mythological form, 

 such as prevailed when the earth and air and 

 water were inhabited by those extinct fossil creat 



ures that we find. It is contemporary with them, 



i86 



