THE UNCOILING FRONDS. 
HE first call of Spring awakens the 
ferns. Before the last snow-banks 
have vanished from the shady hol- 
lows and while meadows are still 
bare and the woods deserted, the impa- 
tient young crosiers begin to stir the 
dead leaves in sheltered nooks. By the 
middle of April, in this latitude, millions 
Uh are putting forth. Some, like tiny green 
serpents, uncoil in the shelter of rock or 
fallen log ; others hang from the shelves of mossy prec- 
ipices; while still others boldly appear along woodland 
streams, in fence corners and in open thickets, and soon 
the whole under-wood is filled with their waving pennons. 
When Thoreau wrote that “ Nature made ferns for 
pure leaves, to show what she could do in that line ” he 
voiced a thought which must often come to those who 
contemplate this beautiful race of plants. Whether it 
be a denizen of our own fields and woodlands or the 
lordly tree-ferns of the Tropics, we are obliged to confess 
that in these we have, indeed, “‘ the proudest of all plants 
in the structure of their foliage.” All the grace and 
beauty that may exist in mere leaves is here perfected 
and the title of “ Nature’s lacework” is well merited. 
Nature, however, is too clever to make all ferns beau- 
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