44 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



Alabama is from 2200 feet above sea level at 

 the line to 1600 feet at our place. This long- 

 range of mountains is capped by sandstone cliffs, from 

 twenty to two hundred feet thick, as described in Saf- 

 ford's Geology of Tennessee. It is in this sandstone 

 that Asplcnium Bradley i is found, at a uniform height 

 of sixteen hundred feet. Its habitat was ascertained by 

 Mr. Bradley at Coal Creek in Walden's Ridge, and 

 near the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, in East Ten- 

 nessee. That point is about eighty or ninety miles 

 from our place. At that place plants are normal at 

 least and ought to be at their best. 



Asplenium Brad Icy i is described in our works on 

 ferns as being eight to ten inches high, and growing 

 preferably on limestone rocks. At our place it grows 

 only in the seams of the sandstone cap. Have never 

 found a plant growing on the rocks, but out of the 

 closest seams on the face of the cliffs up to a height 

 of fifteen feet from the ground. A majority of these 

 plants are found on the naked face of the cliff, where, 

 they are exposed to the hot sun, at least half the day, 

 but they like to grow under shelving rocks, in what 

 our people are pleased to call "rock houses;" that is, 

 where the brow of the cliff hangs over a perpendicular, 

 some ten of fifteen feet, or where the stone near the 

 ground is eroded by the elements and makes a natural 

 shelter. But the plant grows out of those narrow 

 seams just the same way, in the rock houses. These 

 little plants, after leaving the seams spread their fronds 

 against the face of the rocks like little stars, or rosettes. 

 They can easily be covered with a common tea cup. 

 Where they grow under shelving rocks no rain can 

 reach them. If the rocks dip to the center of the 

 mountain, as they do as often as to the outside they 



