-39— 



which frequently occurs thirty to fifty feet high, although the 

 stern is very slender, being only two to four inches in diameter. 

 Probably the stoutest trunk is that of Heiniteha horrida, which, 

 although not more than eight to twelve feet high, is often six to 

 ten inches in diameter. Cyathea pubescens also becomes very 

 large in girth by sending out aerial rootlets, which form a matted 

 growth over the original stem of the tree. I have seen trees thus 

 covered which it would not be easy to reach around with one's 

 arms, and the whole circumference is sometimes draped with the 

 shining green of masses of filmy ferns, especially Trichomanes 

 trichoideum, and Hymenophyllum asplenioides. 



Now let me give you some idea of what may be seen in a 

 stroll along a country road in Jamaica. These roads are as hard 

 and smooth and fine as you will find anywhere in England. 

 Always they are bordered with stone walls on either side, while 

 between the road and the wall there intervenes a strip of green 

 from two to six feet in width. These walls are the nestling places 

 of the common ferns of the particular region where they are sit- 

 uated. The grassy border of the road frequently has its quota of 

 ferLs also, but these are generally of larger size. In the eastern 

 part of the island the commonest roadside fern is Blechnum oc- 

 cidentale. In the central and western parts its place is taken by 

 Polypodium reptans, which has half a dozen different forms and 

 tempts one to gather it notwithstanding one knows perfectly well 

 what it will prove to be. Here it is a creeping plant with round- 

 lobed or hastate pinnae; there it grows upright, as a self re- 

 specting fern should ; here it is long and narrow, there it is quite 

 broad and resembles a true Nephrodium. Indeed, pteridologists 

 are at variance as to whether it is a Polypodium or a Nephrodium. 

 After you have risen 1,000 or 1,500 feet above the sea, Anemia 

 adiantifolia becomes a common roadside fern : and occasionally 

 you will come upon a bank of Gleichenia pectinata. I saw one 

 such bank or rock, which must have been thirty feet long by 

 twenty feet high, completely covered with this trailing fern, 

 bright green on one side and glaucous on the other. On the north 

 coast and under the lee of shelving rocks there is always Pteris 

 longifolia and some of the Adianta. A. cristatum and A. stria- 

 tum both grow in dry and dusty places. In the central parishes 

 Dicksonia rubiginosa stands up in the borders four to five feet 

 high, and the large form of Nephrodium cicutarium is conspic- 

 uous. Or perhaps you come along to a boulder on the face of 

 which clings the running rhizome of Polypodium salicifolium, 



