THE HAND-BOOK 
BRITISH FERNS. 
FERNS constitute so beautiful a portion of the creation 
whether they ornament our ruins with their light 
and graceful foliage, wave their bright tresses from our 
weather-beaten rocks, or clothe with evergreen verdure 
our forests and our hedgerows that it seems next to im- 
possible to behold them without experiencing emotions 
of pleasure. Thus writes a modern historian of the Ferns. 
But it is not only when located among ruins, on the 
mountains, or in the forests, that they constitute one of the 
most beautiful, if not the most lovely, portion of vegetable 
creation. The pure botanist, indeed, will most favourably 
regard that race of ferns which cling to their natural 
localities, and perpetuate their race without the assistance 
of man. But another more numerous class of observers of 
nature, while their admiration of ferns in their wild, un- 
cultivated haunts may not be less intense, desire to render 
them subservient to their domestic gratification ; and would 
fain ornament their gardens with the elegant forms, they 
may have seen elsewhere covering the rugged rock or the 
tortuous tree-trunk, or skirting the hedgerows with a 
feathery fringe of fairy vegetation. This leads to the en- 
deavour to imitate the circumstances, amid mimic rocks and 
precipices, under which nature cultivates her ferns with so 
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