46 
RAMBLES LN SEARCII OF FERNS. 
Turning our backs to the sea, we followed the course of the river 
through some thick woods, then along a shady road which was 
decidedly on the ascent. My friends grew weary, but I assured them 
that according to the description given me by the one botanist of the 
neighbourhood, we were very near the object of our search. Entering 
a gate to the left at the top of the hill, we had soon plunged into a 
wood thicker and darker than the one we had passed through. Here, 
among creeping mosses fully as large as itself, I found the Tunbridge 
Filmy fern ( Hymenophytlum Tunbridgense , Fig. 4 and D). This 
group is distinguished from the Aspidiacese by having the fruit in a 
receptacle, situated at the edge of the frond. A very pronounced vein 
traverses each leaflet in these tiny plants. The texture of the leaflets 
is very transparent and of a dark green, and the seed vessels look like 
tiny urns supported on the angle formed by the juncture of the frond 
and the pinnae. Wilson’s Filmy fern ( H . Wilsoni , Fig. 5) is larger 
than the Tunbridge one, and the leaflets lean to one side; its seed 
vessels are cut into two segments. Esther had the good luck to find 
this fern in Westmoreland, and she sent me a specimen. 
How fortunate I felt myself when I was invited to join an 
expedition to the Land’s End! I gazed on the granite rocks defying 
the fury of the waves of the Atlantic, which do indeed roar terribly. 
I saw the strange caverns underneath, and the noble mass surmounted 
by the moving rock. Here a zealous friend, not sorry for an excuse to 
climb down to the beach, brought me fronds of the much- desired Sea 
Spleenwort. The Lizard lights in the distance, and the glow-worms 
in the hedges, cheered our return to Penzance. The next day I 
visited Marazion Marsh. “ That is an excellent field for wild flowers,” 
said my friends, “and probably for ferns also.” One of my new 
acquaintances cheered my heart before starting with the present of a 
frond of the Bristle fern, the pride of the waterfalls in Killarney 
( Trick (manes brevisetum, Fig. C and E). She told me that its 
creeping rliizoma forms pendant masses, covered with fronds of 
brilliant green, always within reach of the spray from the waterfall. 
