FERXS AND MOSSES. 51 
This fern, though, universally distributed, is, in our 
minds, particularly associated with the remembrance of 
Windsor Castle. Large tufts attracted our attention on 
the walls of the old Keep, where James of Scotland, the 
poet king, passed his dolorous captivity during the reign of 
Henry IY. They sprung, if we mistake not, from a fissure 
near the window from whence the captive looked down on 
the lady of his love,* when all unconsciously she gathered 
flowers in the small garden that extended at the base of the 
stern old fortress. 
Hark to the rushing sound of the waterfall ! its white 
foam may be seen among the trees, and far beneath our 
pathway. Tread carefully, the bank is very steep, and 
though covered with brushwood and brambles, its sides are 
nearly perpendicular, and a false step might send you into 
the racing stream. Now we are safe, and can stand securely 
. on the old bridge, which, as antiquaries tell, led from one 
kingdom of the Saxon heptarchy to another. Look over the 
parapet the whirl of the eddying torrent is almost bewil- 
dering ; but calmly grows that beautiful tuft of fern above 
the raging waters the fern of waterfalls! to which the 
unmeaning name of Beech-fern (Polypodium pliegopteris of 
authors) is applied. Why, we cannot tell: for this re- 
markably graceful and well-marked fern has rarely, if 
ever, been found beneath the shade of beech trees. It 
grows in damp localities, on dripping rocks, or in cavernous 
recesses, and within the spray of falling waters, where its 
wiry rhizoma, tough and uniformly creeping, often forms a 
network over perpendicular rocks. 
The species are widely diffused. In this country, the 
mountainous districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, West- 
moreland, Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland, -are 
its favourite icsorts ; growing also near the town of Lud- 
low, renowned in Border history. In Scotland, Wales, and 
* Daughter of the Duke of Somerset, 
