196 



RAMBLES IN SARK. 



found growing within reach. Twenty or thirty years ago 

 there were to my knowledge scores of little caverns and 

 recesses on the coast tapestried with this fern from floor to 

 roof — giant roots sometimes, with fronds two or three feet 

 long. 



Fourteen ferns grow wild in Sark, of which the most 

 striking and ornamental, as well as perhaps the most widely 

 distributed, is the Harts Tongue. Other fairly common 

 species are the Lady Fern, the Male Fern, the common 

 Polypody, the Black Spleeinvort and the Lanceolate Spleen- 

 wort. The last named is the best fern that grows here, for it 

 is restricted to the maritime counties of the south and west, 

 and is not found at all in the east of England. 



There are five ferns which are decidedly rare in Sark — 

 the Broad Fern, the Angular Shield Fern, the Hard Fern, 

 the Rue-leaved Spleenwort, and the Maidenhair Spleenwort. 

 The similarity of name must not lead to the confusion of the 

 last one with the true Maidenhair Fern, a species which has 

 now become exceedingly scarce in England, and does not grow 

 wild anywhere in the Channel Islands. Finally there is the 

 common Bracken, or Brake fern, that flourishes on the cliffs 

 by the acre, covering them with a mantle of deep green in 

 summer, and ruddy brown in autumn, and always forming one 

 of the principal features of a Sark landscape. 



In the course of our erratic wanderings we have not as 

 yet had occasion to follow the course of some little streamlet 

 that winds down a cliff valley on its way to the ocean ; nor 

 have we examined any marshy spots and wet corners, swampy 

 in winter, when the rains have come, but in summertime the 

 abode of many a beautiful plant, both large and small. For 

 anyone who really loves wild flowers, and takes pleasure in 

 searching for them, all sorts of little surprises are in store : 

 not so much because the plants are specially interesting from 

 a strictly scientific point of view, but because while sauntering 

 along " in profitable idleness," as Wordsworth has it, one 

 comes upon them quite unexpectedly in all their native 

 wildness and beauty. 



Here in a moist corner, overhung by tangled bushes of 

 hawthorn and bramble, is a plantation of Yellow Flags, with 

 big golden blossoms and erect sword-like leaves, among which 

 rises a tall Water Figwort, noticeable by its square stem and 

 small dark-coloured flowers, much visited by wasps for the 

 sake of their honey. A few yards further off among the 

 rank vegetation which luxuriates in the wet ground, we find 

 the Bog Stitchwort, the Fleabane, the fragrant Water Mint, 



