CHAPTER XIX 



WILD FERJs^S 



I AM thankful to live in a place where many 

 Ferns are among our wild hedge plants, and above 

 all where there is an abundance of Bracken. For 

 though my neighbourhood is populous, and the 

 hedges of the most frequented ways have been 

 stripped of their Ferns, yet I know the country 

 so well for a good many miles round, that when 

 I want to see any particular Fern I am nearly 

 always able to find it, though it is true that some 

 habitats of rather rare Ferns have been entirely 

 destroyed. In one great swampy hollow, where, 

 when I was a child, I remember the Royal Fern 

 growing high above my head, not an atom now 

 remains. It used to grow in great mounded tussocks, 

 the crowns springing from a sort of raised table 

 of matted black root nearly eighteen inches high. 

 I remember leaning back against one of these and 

 looking up and seeing how bright the sunlit rusty 

 heads of flower looked against the late summer 

 sky. It was then so abundant, and its home so 

 little known, that there was no reason to hesitate 

 about taking some pieces to plant by our ponds. 



224 



