SEA AND SKY AND WAVING GREEN 
I 53 
At the entrance to this tunnel of green, before the shadows 
deepen, the hedge -banks on each side are clothed with a 
trailing dress — delightful shreds of deep green grass, trailing 
sprays of ivy, wild rose, and blackberry, sweet wild thyme and 
pimpernel, tender shoots of hawthorn, produced from the 
berries which have fallen from the larger growth on the 
hedge-top, roots and leaves of primrose and wild violet, with 
woodbine and crowsfoot. On one side a bush of holly, and 
above, overshadowing shrubs of hawthorn and hazel, whilst 
mingled with the wealth of greenery on the hedge-side are 
gentle fronds of the Soft Prickly Shield Fern and the green 
tips of Scolopendrium. Presently the hedge-banks get 
higher and steeper, and the trees which crown them come 
closer and closer together, forming a canopy of interlaced 
branches which throw all beneath them into the deepest 
shade. Here, by the absence of sunshine, the narrow hedge - 
banks lose some of their clothing of trailing shrub, but find 
a more congenial dress in deep-green moss. Here, too, the 
ivy is more at home, and from its knotted roots in the hedge - 
top it trails in rich profusion over the steep hedge-bank, 
whose mossy sides it kisses with its leaves set in their depth 
of bluish green. In the dark hedge-top the Hartstongue 
revels amidst a sheltering mass of ivy and splendid forms of 
Poly sti churn angulare, the latter perched in situations where 
their fronds can freely display their graceful shuttlecock 
shapes under the shelter of the over-arching foliage. Trees 
above the matted and canopied clothing of the hedge-top 
< leepen the shadows around us as we stand under the lower 
branches of ivy-covered oak and ash, whose arms intermingle 
with the canopy of nut-busli and hawthorn. Intermingled 
again with this canopy are the far-creeping tendrils of a 
blackberry -bush, dropping down into the lane, and suspended 
in mid-air in lace-like shreds of green. 
Now the hedge-banks rise higher still, whilst the shade 
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