
524 FERNS. 
evergreen all the year, easily cultivated, and worthy a search 
for it in shaded ravines and on bushy moist hill-sides. The 
soft Shield Fern is European, and of “this very sportive fern 
there are no fewer than sixty varieties, the handsomest of all 
is undoubtedly the A. plumosum, in which the fronds will 
reach nine inches in width, and nearly three feet in length; it 
has a spreading, plume-like habit, but is unfortunately a gem 
which is ‘rare’ as well as ‘rich.’” A very common’fern, but 
one of much delicacy, found with us in moist rich woods, and 
which in the autumn turns to a rich yellow and fades into 
nearly white ; sought for winter boquets of dried leaves, is,for 
some unknown reason called abroad, the Lady Fern, and bo- 
tanically, for a known reason, termed Athyrium, on account 
of a marked difference in the shape of the little scale, or in- 
dusium, which covers the spore dust on the back of its pretty 
fronds. It is the Asplenium felix-femina of our manuals, 
and one which is subject to great variation, having been con- 
sidered, in one condition, a distinct species. It is easily cul- 
tivated and much esteemed in England, where it runs into 
many more varieties than with us, or so because these vari- 
ations have not been so minutely noticed or carefully re- 
corded. There are “sixty or seventy recognized varieties of 
this fern which are in cultivation; a few are attractive. The 
tasselled is one of the greatest favorites ; the most singular 1$ 
known by the name of Frizellia, in which the fronds are not 
an inch in width, with kidney-shaped leaflets divided into 
two parts, which overlap each other and are toothed at the 
edges; these are attached to each side of the leaf-stalk- 
Some pretty lines on this fern run to this measure : 
“If you would see the Lady Fern, 
In all her graceful power, 
Go look for her where woodlarks learn, 
ove songs in a summer bower 
But not by burn, in wood or dale, 
Grows anything so fair, 
As the plumy crests of emerald pale, 
That waves in the wind, or sighs in the gale 
Of the Lady Fern, when the sunbeams turn, 
To gold her delicate hair.” 






