THE HOME OF THE SEA FERN 
*73 
in places absolutely crowded with plants of the beautiful 
Asplenmm Icmceolatum. Thence across some fields we made 
for the terrific but beautiful coast, in search of Asplenium 
marinum which we had been assured grew in splendid 
luxuriance along the sheltered rocks in this neighbourhood. 
We were not long in reaching the top of a steep inlet of 
the sea. But the cliffs reared up almost perpendicularly, 
and appeared to forbid the possibility of access to the wild 
beach which lay far down below. With some difficulty, 
however, and at some risk we clambered down the rocky 
sides of the solitary chasm, and made our way on to the 
rugged beach which was wildly strewn with great masses of 
rock over which the boiling waters of the sea broke in fury. 
We had indeed reached the home of the sea Fern : for on 
the first glance around we espied under the moist shelter of 
a great mass of rock just above our head, a splendid speci- 
men of Marinum with fronds fully twelve inches long, 
hanging down in a great and shining mass of purple stem 
and leafy glossy green. 
For some distance we made our way along this terrible 
but beautiful shore, terrible to the hapless bark which might 
be flung on to it in the wild rage of a south-westerly gale, 
but beautiful to those who love to see Nature in her grandest 
aspects. Above, steep, jagged, precipitous cliffs ; below, 
fallen rocks of every form and shape, strewn wildly upon the 
savage beach, and meeting sternly and immovably the heavy 
roll of the sea, which comes in with a sullen roar, and is 
broken into a dozen reverberations as wave after wave finds 
its way in amongst the rocky masses of the foreshore. Now 
against a solid front of rock the incoming wave comes with 
a swinging £ crash,’ and the liquid missile hurled against the 
stony surface flies far into the air in ten thousand points of 
snow-white foam. Now there is a dull roar, followed by a 
succession of mournful echoes as a great wave rolls into a 
