ojf Guernsey. 



47 



walls which are so frequently supplanting the green turf can 

 with difficulty be kept free from them. 



What a relief on a hot summer day to leave the broiling 

 high road, and plunge into one of the water-lanes : to pass 

 beneath the overhanging boughs, to hear the murmuring 

 stream at our feet makiug pleasant music, and to see the ferns 

 in the height of their luxuriance; the bright glossy green 

 fronds of the Hart's tongue hanging in pendulous succession to 

 the water's edge, leaving room only for a narrow fringe of 

 liverwort and golden saxifrage; here may be seen fronds 

 nearly three feet in length ; some with their tips so divided as 

 to become a beautiful tasselled variety, an occasional Shield, 

 Male, Lady or Broad-buckler giving a variety of tint to the 

 mass, and having their pinnules so developed as almost to lose 

 their normal character. One could spend hours amid such 

 beauty of form, and return to it with ever new delight. 



The graceful outline and elegant drooping of the fronds 

 have been sufficient to cause our native ferns to be appreciated 

 and sought after as much as the most brightly coloured of our 

 wild flowers ; the beautiful effect of the pendulous fronds in a 

 bouquet, and the elegance of the growing plants in pots are 

 so universally acknowledged, that there is scarcely a household 

 where they are not cultivated or in constant request. "We 

 know that exotic forms are the most in demand, and readily 

 admit that fern-fanciers selecting from all parts of the globe 

 have been able to bring into cultivation many more elegant 

 and majestic forms than any our native country can produce ; 

 but most of these are natives of warmer latitudes, where 

 greater development would be expected, and our indigenous 

 species may worthily bear comparison in many particulars with 

 forms obtained from an equally restricted district in any part 

 of the world. 



I find that Moore's Book of Ferns gives forty- four species 

 as British ; of these we have eighteen in Guernsey. To com- 



