68 HARDY FERNS. 
me up, but twenty shan't make me live." I never 
have made you Hve, and I fear I never shall. I 
treat Botrychium like an annual, and transplant 
it yearly to the Fernery; but I do not care for 
it. It has but one form of beauty, and that is 
short-lived, and you see it all at once. It comes 
up short and stumpy, just where it pleases — it 
won't be put out. It waves over no broken stone, 
it adorns no tempest-beaten tree. If you trans- 
plant it, it dies ; if you leave it, at the first hint of 
winter it perishes. Often and often I have wished 
it might be banished my favourite kingdom, and 
consigned to the land of ''lords and ladies," to 
which, in spite of all botany, I believe it more 
than half belongs. 
Ophioglossum grows on Haldon, not far from 
Botrychium, which it much resembles in its habits. 
In the lanes leading to Haldon I have found 
x'ldiantum nigrum acutum, the variegated Adi- 
antum, a curious variety of Polypodium vulgare, 
having each pinnule cleft at the end, Tricho- 
manes, Blechnum spicant, &c. ; and in the gullies, 
