80 HANDY BOOK OK 
five to ten in number, form regular and nearly marginal 
series, extremely ornamental, and presenting pleasing ob- 
jects for the microscope. 
AUGUST. 
" I cannot but think the very complacency and satisfaction which 
a man takes in these works of Nature, to be a laudable, if not a vir- 
tuous habit of mind." 
ADDISON. 
THE geography of plants is a subject of the deepest interest, 
suggestive, too, of pleasant thoughts, and often bringing be- 
fore the mental view remembrances of bygone days, when 
rambling through woods and vales, by streams and over 
breezy commons, some long sought-for plant was discovered 
in its own lone habitat. We speak not of that perfect order 
which pervades the universe, concerning the assignment of 
vegetable tribes or families to regions far remote of the 
bread-fruit and the palm to sunny climes, and fir-trees to 
cold inhospitable lands of plants invaluable to mariners, 
among otherwise sterile rocks, in seas where men go in quest 
of whales. Our attention is directed rather to exemplifica- 
tions of the same arrangement, conspicuous in this country 
and its sister island ; and of this the Trichomanes speciosurn 
of Willdenow, or the T. alatum of Withering, affords a 
striking instance. 
The Bristle-Fern, for such is its familiar name, is one of 
the most interesting and local of British species. .Newman 
reports it as utterly unknown in England, Wales, and Scot- 
land ,s growing sparingly in the county of Wicklow, at 
Hermitage Glen and Power's Court Waterfall, though at 
neither of these localities has more than a single specimen 
been discovered ; luxuriantly near Youghal, Glendine, in 
the county of Cork, and equally so at Turk's Waterfall, near 
