OSMUNDA. 
201 
eight or ten feet high. The tufted stem by degrees 
acquires height, so that in very old and luxuriant plants 
there is a trunk formed from a foot to two feet in elevation. 
From the crown of this trunk (whether that is seated close 
to the ground, or elevated) grow the fronds, which are 
seldom less than two feet high in weakly plants ; more 
usually from three to four feet, and forming a mass of a 
couple of yards across ; or sometimes, as upon the margins 
of the Irish lakes, eight, ten, or twelve feet high, noble 
and majestic almost beyond conception. In the lovely 
lake scenery of Killarney this plant is very prominent; 
and we need not be surprised at the rapturous descriptions 
which have been given of its arching fronds, dipping in 
the crystal lakes, and sheltering, with its broad green 
pinnae, the numerous aquatic birds which seek its canopy 
from the prying eyes of pleasure-hunting tourists. When 
young, the fronds have generally a reddish stipes, and a 
glaucous surface, which at a later period becomes lost. 
These fronds are annual, growing up in spring, and 
perishing in the autumn. Their form when mature is 
lanceolate; they are bipinnate, the pinnae lanceolate or 
ovate-lanceolate ; with pinnules of an oblong-ovate form, 
somewhat auricled at the base, especially on the posterior 
