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HANDY BOOK OP 
shrubs, and flowers of herbs and parasitic plants, admirably 
exemplifies the assignment of different races, among men, 
to various portions of the earth ; while such as mostly beau- 
tify the trunks or branches of old trees, hint instructive 
thoughts of mutual benefits, and of that dependence on each 
other which renders every individual a benefactor to his 
kind. 
IheAthyriumJiUx-femina, or Lady-fern the Polypodium 
Jilix-femina of Lightfoot, Bolton, and Withering though 
growing profusely in moist and shady places, about rivulets, 
and on heaths, yet frequently adorns the aged heads of 
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pollard trees, and often springs from out of the hollows 
wrought by time, or woodpeckers. This species, one of the 
most elegant among British ferns, though universally yet not 
equally distributed, is pleasingly associated in our remem- 
brance with a wild and solitary place in Gloucestershire, 
which botanists may visit with advantage. That place is 
called Custom Scrubs ; its locality is beside the old road 
from Stroud to Cheltenham, where the traveller, having 
ascended a considerable eminence, passes a fine beech wood, 
