41 
“ In nature’s all instructive book, 
Where can the eye of reason look, 
And not some gainful lesson find. 
To guide and fortify the mind ?” 
Plate II, fig. 12. 
I. Maiden-hair Spleenwort. Asplenium TricJiomanes. 
This species is of frequent occurrence throughout Grreat 
Britain and Ireland, and grows on rocks, walls, churches, 
ruins, bridges, and hedge-rows. It is very abundant in this 
district. Though this is not a very aspiring plant, neither 
rears its head with crested pride, still, in many of our hedge- 
banks, where it is thickly matted together, or among the 
rocks and walls, where it more humbly creeps, it claims the 
admiration of the lover of nature’s productions. It appears 
much less frequently in the East, than the West of England. 
It is not only an European plant, but is even found in the 
far distant regions of Japan, and crossing the Atlantic, 
shows itself in Canada, and the United States of North 
America. The plant is from three to ten inches high, rising 
from a black fibrous root. The stalk is dark brown, or black, 
and brightly polished. The frond is linear, and simply pin- 
nate. The rachis, at first green, afterwards assumes the 
sombre hue of the stalk. The leafiets are roundish, egg- 
shaped, blunt at the top, and notched at their margins. The 
upper surface is dark, dull green, while the under is of a 
much paler colour. There is scarcely any stalk to the little 
leaves. Though at first the clusters are quite distinct, while 
the covers remain, afterwards a dark black mass alone ap- 
pears, enough to perplex the young collector, if he take such 
a specimen to determine the species. In the leafiets the 
side-veins are forked, and there are from six to twelve 
clusters of fruit on each. This Spleen- wort is an evergreen. 
When the frond begins to decay, the leafy part falls off, but 
the wiry rachis and stalk remain, a dense and dreary tuft. 
As the bald head and grey hairs presage the wasting away 
of the human body, so the accumulation of these leafless 
stalks betokens the desolating effect of age on this portion 
of the vegetable world. 
The fronds make their appearance in the spring. The 
spores, invisible to the human eye, are wafted through the 
