44 
out the whole district. We should recommend that they be 
taken from hedge-banks. It is no little satisfaction, that 
the beauty of nature has not been destroyed here by the 
miserable stone walls that so disfigure the fields of the mid- 
land counties. It would be a sorry sight to see, in this 
utilitarian age, our noble fences thrown down, nature’s ar- 
bour demolished, and fiint walls alone visible, in three of 
the loveliest counties of good old Albion. 
This Spleenwort is widely distributed throughout Europe, 
and North and South Africa. The English Fern collectors 
have also lighted on it in Madeira, and many of the Islands 
in the Great Atlantic. 
The medicinal properties of this Fern were celebrated by 
older writers. Hoffman considered it as antiscorbutic, and 
Eay states that it was in use for cough, pleurisy, and asthma. 
Little is it now valued by modern practitioners. 
Gerarde remarks, “ That it is called Adiantum, (not wet- 
ted)* because the leaf, as Theophrastus saith, is never wet, 
for it casteth off water that falleth thereon, or being drowned, 
or covered in water, it remaineth still, as if it were dry, as 
Pliny likewise writeth.” This is not true, though the 
glossy surface may tend to shake ofi* the liquid more rapidly. 
“ Before me lay the sea : 
Broad, heaving billows murmured carelessly 
O’er wave-ribbed sands, with lulling peaceful sound : 
While snow-white sea gulls sailed athwart the sky. 
The air was motionless, till gentle breeze 
Sprang up at sunset ; yet huge, lumbering waves 
Rolled in from distant storm, wild, musical, 
Wave-music.” — Symington’s Harebell Chimes. 
Plate II, fig. 15. 
3. Sea Spleenwort. Asplenium marinum. How vast are 
the treasures of the deep 1 Not only have we beneath its 
surface the pearls, the agates, the emeralds, the jacynths, 
and the crystals clear as glass ; we have vast fields of sea- 
weeds and sub-marine plants, which make the ocean appear 
* This is the signification of the Greek word Adiantum. 
