14 
RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF FERNS. 
is replete in fossil ferns and their allies. These first-created plants, 
these patriarchs of vegetation, form the chief part of the coal 
measures. Thus we may well regard ferns as the aristocracy of 
vegetable life, the “oldest family in the country.” To date from 
William the Conqueror they would consider indeed fungus gentility ! 
Certainly as we see them in England, they are very reduced and 
insignificant members of the ancient and honourable house, but they 
may well hold up their heads and share with Bruce the motto, 
“ Fuimus .” Our bright winter fires blaze by their light ; our cheer- 
ful gas owes much of its essence to them : so even in Britain they 
are worthy of all honour. But the fern valleys of Australia and New 
Zealand, where every plant is a forest tree, with such comeliness of 
form and lightness of foliage as fills the heart with admiring wonder, 
— these proudly uphold the family grandeur in the present age. Thus 
the ferns have their family history, legends of a vaporous atmosphere 
and obscure light, of a gre%t convulsion and a universal tomb ; and 
their past, in a certain sense, gives light to the present : certainly it 
throws a clear light upon God’s wonderful providence in turning the 
ruins of immature Nature into a blessed provision for the creature of 
His special favour — man. 
“ And so the heart intently gleaning; 
O’er fields of legendary lore, 
May light upon a holier meaning, 
A meaning never found before.” 
I had come into the wood to search for one special family of ferns, 
the Polystichums, which come next in order, according to my book, to 
the Polypodiacse. These Prickly Shield ferns are of an elongated 
form, the pinnae are divided again, or bi-pinnate , and the masses of 
seed cases have round covers attached by a thread in the centre. One 
species is decidedly evergreen, the others are so in sheltered situations; 
they are of a firmer, tougher texture than any other of our native 
ferns, and should be placed as the vanguard of the fernery, as they 
bear wind and weather better than any others, and are well calculated 
