RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF FERNS. 
37 
tried in vain to step only upon stones ; I was obliged to trust to a 
cushion of moss, and my foot sank ankle-deep in water. But I could 
give no attention to the state of my boots, for immediately before me 
rose a group of tall ferns, whose light and feathery form, and delicate 
hue, immediately reminded me of the Alpine Polypody. I knew that 
the situation was not sufficiently mountainous for this fern, so my next 
idea was that it must be the Lady fern, which bears so close a 
resemblance to it. The examination of the seed masses confirmed this 
opinion ; they were long shaped and slightly curved, the fully ripe ones 
almost enough curved to present the kidney shape of the Lastrsea. 
Shining drops of morning dew huug heavily on its tapering pinnse, 
and weighed them down. The plant was nearly two feet high, and 
the grace of its clustering group of fronds was exquisite. The covers 
were fastened at the side, and the other edge was fringed. The fronds 
were lance-shaped. How it reminded me of Sir Walter Scott’s 
description — 
“ Where the copsewood is the greenest, 
Where the fountain glistens sheenest, 
Where the morning dew lies longest, 
There the Lady fern grows strongest.” 
As we proceeded through the wood, I saw that Esther was right in 
asserting that the Lady fern was common there. We found plants 
and groups of plants growing as luxuriantly as the one I have 
described, some of them differing materially in form. One variety, 
which Esther pointed out as the especial favourite of a friend of hers, 
she said was named by that friend “ the red-haired lady,” because of 
the deep rose tint upon its stalk. It is the variety called by some 
authors Rhseticum. Another, with the pinnules much divided and 
rolled inwards at the edges, seemed to me to be the variety Convexum ; 
it was narrower in its form and even more elegant than the common 
variety of Lady fern ( Athyrium filix fxmina , Fig. 4). This fern is as 
abundant in Ireland as the common Brake here, and is used, like it, for 
packing fruit and fish. 
