T h e featlieiy Fern ! tlie featliery Fern !
I t gi'owetli wild, and it growetli free,
By th e ripxiling hrook, and th e wimpling burn,
And th e ta ll and stately forest tree ;
AVhere th e merle and th e mavis sweetly sing.
And th e hlue ja y makes th e woods to ring,
And th e pheasant flies on whirring wing,
Beneath a verdurous canopy.
The feathery Fern ! th e featlieiy Fern !
An emerald sea, i t waveth wide,
And seems to flash, and gleam, and burn,
Like th e ceaseless fl.ow of a golden t i d e ;
On bushy slope, or in leafy glade,
Amid th e twilight depth of shade,
By interlacing branches made,
And tnm k s with lichens glorified.
Anon.
THE BRITISH FERNS.
G e n u s 1 : PO LY PO DIUIVI, Linnceiis.
G e n . C h a u .—Sori non-indusiato, circular or ovoid, superficial or
immersed ; the receptacles terminal or medial on tho free veins.
Veins simple or forked, from a central costa, or simple co,stæform in
the ultimate segments ; venules free.
Fronds coriaceous horhaoeous or mombranacoous, simple pinnatifid
pinnate or bi-tri-pinnate, articulated or continuous with the
rhizome, the pinnæ sometimes articulated with the raohis.
Stem rhizomatous or caudiciform—rhizome creeping; caudex
short erect, or decumbent.
The British species of lolypodium belong to two distinct sections
of tho genus, of which the type is Folypodium milcjare. The distinctive
features of the group consist in the presence of circular or
punotiform sori, and in the absence of covers or indusia ; and hy
these marks it is easily distinguished from other British Ferns :
but when exotic species aro taken into account, another peculiaritjq
that of the free or disunited veins bcoomos necessary to distinguish
it from tho various generic groups subdivided from it, which have
tho veins more or less, and in various ways, reticulated.
Even the two groups into which the British species naturally fall,
have by some modern m'itors been regarded as distinct genera, the
habit of the plants being chiefly relied on to fm-nish distinguishing
characters. There seems to us, however, to he such a complete
conformity in the oharaoter of the sori, and such a conformity also
in the nature of the venation, so far as words can express its chief