IV 
PREFACE. 
changed and unchanging link of time between the present 
and all the past. And this interest becomes with us, in 
this country, yet greater, when we are reminded that we 
stand and look upon the Ferns of a temperate clime, 
flourishing upon a soil which contains the entombed re- 
mains of vast tribes of the same plants, once abundant on 
the same localities, but natives of warmer regions ; that 
during the immeasurable periods of the formation of coal, 
when tropical reeds and conifers, lycopods, and arborescent- 
ferns adorned this land, the scenery of our vegetation re- 
sembled that of the warmest parts of New Zealand, and of 
islands in the same latitude. Nothing short of a visit to such 
localities could give an idea of the Fern-scenery of Ancient 
Britain, as exhibiting the damp shaded ravines and gullies 
of sub-tropical countries, in which this beautiful order 
reigns in profuse luxuriance ; where the tree-ferns attain 
their most exalted height, and spread in drooping loveliness 
a crown of fronds, from six to eighteen feet in length, rising 
above an erect taper stem often exceeding twenty feet ; and 
where the trailing species hang from stem to stem, and 
crag to crag, in festoons and fringes of the deepest green ; * 
elegant, featherlike, and clustering fronds forming, beneath, 
a soft cool carpet ; while every cliff is crowned with 
an overspreading mantle of maidenhair, and the very chinks 
through which water drips and runs are lined with the 
more minute species : even the marsh displaying its wiry 
luxuriant blechna, and the dry rocky plains rendered 
cheerful and bright by the wildest profusion of brakes and 
polypodies. It is not probable, however, that one species 
of the Coal-flora has survived ; the Ferns of our times being 
peculiar to cooler regions, and attaining less exalted stature 
and profusion. 
* In tlie East Indies, the slender twining stems of the Snakestongue Fern, 
Lygodium scandens, Sw., with fronds resembling Spiraea japonica, but edged 
with spikes of Lycopod-like fruit, take hold of and elegantly encircle everything 
within their reach. The maidens of India adorn themselves and crown their 
heads with wreaths composed of it. This Fern is not rare in our stoves. 
