A PARADISE OF FERNS. 
60 
pendrium vulgare ), one of tlie most easily recog¬ 
nizable of the British Ferns, with its crumpled 
tongue-shaped frond, growing sometimes to the 
length—stem and frond together—of three feet. 
The thick and rich-looking yet leathery texture of 
the fronds of the Hartstongue, with their deep and 
shining green colour, make them look exquisitely 
cool and refreshing, rising up out of the dark 
hedge-bank as they do in thick and clustering tufts 
—-sometimes almost erect, at other times grace¬ 
fully bending backwards their shining, leathery 
tips. Underneath the curling tongue-shaped 
fronds, lie the curious rows of seeds (spores), 
whose rich reddish-brown colour beautifully con¬ 
trasts with the deep, shining green of the frond. 
The Hartstongue is a bold free plant. You will 
find it growing almost everywhere in Devonshire: 
on the tops and at the sides of walls; hanging 
from old ruins; growing out from the sides of 
cliffs and deserted quarries; dropping down its 
long green fronds into the cool and limpid water 
of road-side wells hewn out of the rock : often ex¬ 
posed to the full blaze of the sun, but always in 
such cases dwindled down to a tiny size. The 
