WILD FERNS 231 



joint only. Here are no less than seven kinds of 

 Ferns, two of them rare in the district. The list is : 

 Male Fern, Black Spleenwort, Polypody, Wall - Rue, 

 Wall Spleenwort, Hart's-tongue, and Scaly Spleenwort 

 {Ceterach). They grow sometimes singly, sometimes 

 in a friendly group of two or three sorts together. 

 I hope this may not meet the eye of any guardian of 

 the line, or that if it does, that he may love Ferns. 

 Of course, they do take to themselves a little of the 

 lime in the company's mortar, but they are content 

 with so little sustenance that I should doubt if any 

 root penetrated more than half an inch ; and mean- 

 while they adorn the wall with so gracious and beauti- 

 ful a trimming that to remove them would seem an 

 act of wanton barbarity. 



When one sees this one spot where these little 

 plants have found a dwelling, it sets one thinking 

 about the millions of fern -spores that must be every- 

 where flying about looking for places where they may 

 lodge and grow. In all probability the minute seed- 

 spores did not actually lodge in the joint where they 

 took root, for it is overhung by the upper courses of 

 brickwork; unless they were blown up from below, 

 which seems unlikely. I should think it more prob- 

 able that the spores landed on the platform and were 

 washed into the joint. 



But of all our Ferns the one that is really im- 

 portant in the landscape is the Bracken ; in all its 

 many forms and aspects a thing of beauty and of 



