igo IRature StuMes in Berksbire^ 



with curious bulblets growing on the under sides of 

 its fronds, which fall away and propagate the plant. 

 Close beside these we find little clusters of the ebony 

 spleenwort, whose polished stems gleam between 

 their dark-green pinnre. Each in its own way, these 

 are among the very daintiest in the collection, though 

 most people pass them by unnoticed. Down in the 

 swampy grass a rod or two away from them, I some- 

 times raise one of the small Botrychia or grape- 

 ferns, another tiny slip which would easily be 

 mistaken for some flowering plant. And if you care 

 for these little things, and will step across the field, 

 climb a rail fence, and go up the hillside to where the 

 limestone ledges crop out, I will show you in some 

 crevices of the rock two or three places where, every 

 year, 1 am sure to find a little colony of the small 

 spleenwort, the Asplenium parviilum, perhaps the 

 tiniest specimen in all my collections. 



But the largest room in my fernery and the one 

 which furnishes the largest variety of specimens, is 

 the wood-lot yonder, within whose territory, half a 

 mile square, one may find nearly all the common 

 wood and swamp ferns of New England. At the 

 very entrance to the path the ground is grown thick 

 with the pale-green fronds of the New York fern, 

 whose grace and beauty are not one whit diminished 

 because it is so common ; and before many steps are 

 taken the rich hay-like odours of the dicksonia delight 

 the sense. Here the sensitive fern, the Onodea seiisi- 

 bilis, spreads its hands upward, though it clings 



