76 
THE PEHN PARADISE. 
little fronds. It lias a great love for rotten stone 
and mortar, and is often found growing on tire 
sides of houses. It is a very hardy little Fern, 
and will thrive in the sunshine, but most loves 
moist and sheltered nooks. 
Growing by the side of the Wall Hue is the 
beautiful Maidenhair Spleenwort (.Asjplenium tri- 
chomanes). Its fibrous wiry rootlets insinuate 
themselves into the crevices between the stones, 
and its crown throws up a dense mass of 
exquisite little fronds, with stems like shining 
black hairs, and with little bright-green, round, 
saw-edged leaflets alternately placed on each 
side of the stems, along the greater part of 
their length. 
Following the downward course of the lane we 
come, in the most cool, damp, and shady places, 
upon numbers of the Lady Fern (Athyrium filix- 
foemina ), perhaps the most graceful of the larger 
British Ferns. Its drooping feathery fronds are 
indeed, when finely grown, extremely beautiful, 
and the entire plant forms the most conspicuous 
ornament of the places in which it delights to 
grow. It throws up its fronds oftentimes in 
