But there was not the slightest dustiness, nothing less pure than leaves, and ripe pollen, and flecks of withered bracken and moss.

" The wind blew shrewdly, with an occasional spatter of rain; the withered bracken lay like a vast carpet of dull copper-color under the cloudy sky; scattered fir-trees made fantastic shapes in the early gloom of a December day.

And, just for fun, he did it, taking to the heath beside the road, twisting his long body in and out amongst gorse, heather, and bracken, very noiselessly, with wonderful dexterity.

They moved so softly that they escaped unheardunless Beaumaroy were right in the notion that his ear caught a little rustle of the bracken.

Strongly and well the good horse bore them, what time the sun waxed fierce and hot, filling the woods with a stifling heat, a close, windless air dank and heavy with the scent of leaves and bracken.

So will I none of the shallows!" "Then verily must I chide thee, Fidelis, for" "Then verily will I unto yon boskage, messire, to prepare us a fire 'gainst the 'beasts that raven,' and our bracken beds.

So saying, Sir Fidelis arose, and taking the wallet in one hand and setting the other 'neath Beltane's arm, led him to where, deep-bowered under screening willows, a fire burned cheerily, whereby were two beds of scented bracken.

In summer the warm breath of the pines creeps down the mountains to mingle with the cooler air that stirs the bracken.

The high cliff stretching overhead, and covered with bushes and bracken, amongst which nestled the red-tiled cottages.

The beauty of the scented pines and the new green of the bracken took my breath and filled my heart with a joy that changed immediately to overwhelming grief; for I could not help contrasting this glorious kind of life with the squalid existence to which I must return so soon.

I realised so fiercely the force of the contrast that I was afraid to make friends with the pines and admire the palm-like beauty of the bracken lest I should increase my subsequent anguish; and I hid myself in dark corners of the woods to fight the growing sickness of my body with the feeble weapons of my panic-stricken mind.

CONTENTS List of Illustrations Preface Introduction Key to Genera Classification of Ferns The Polypodies The Bracken Group: Bracken Cliff Brakes Rock Brake The Lip Ferns (Cheilanthes)

CONTENTS List of Illustrations Preface Introduction Key to Genera Classification of Ferns The Polypodies The Bracken Group: Bracken Cliff Brakes Rock Brake The Lip Ferns (Cheilanthes)

Trichomanes Bracken.

Sterile Frond Bracken.

Fertile Frond Bracken, var.

The trees were all dusted with the green spangles of high spring, the hedges were full of stitchwort and campion and the woods of blue hyacinths and purple orchid; and everywhere there was a great noise of birdsthrushes, blackbirds, robins, finches, and many moreand in one warm corner of the park some bracken was unrolling, and there was a leaping and rushing of fallow deer.

He was walking knee high in bracken across an open space in the beechwoods that diversify Lieutenant-Colonel Hick's park, and he was carrying his gunvery fortunately for him a double-barrelled gunover his shoulder, when he first caught sight of the thing.

In the graphic page of the Roman historian, as in the stanzas of the "Ariosto of the North:" "From shingles grey the lances start, The bracken bush sends forth the dart, The rushes and the willow wand Are bristling into axe and brand.

Thro' moss, and bracken, and purple bloom, With a glitter of gorses here and there, Shoulder deep in the dewy bloom, My love, I follow you everywhere!

You are hiding there in the bracken, now! Come out of your covert, my Bonny Belle I see the glint of your eyes sweet blue Your yellow locksah, you know full well Your scarlet mantle has told on you; Come out this minute, you laughing minx!

Soft sounds of wind, rising and falling along the mountain or stirring amid last year's bracken, pursued them, till they reached the edge of the ghyll, and, descending its side, found the water murmuring among the stones, the only audible thing in a deep shade and silence.

The rain had vanished; and a frosty sunshine sparkled on the fells, on the red bracken and the foaming becks.

Near the sea the soil wasexcept in the settlers' clearingscovered with tough bracken from two to six feet high, and with other troublesome growths.

The Maoris started out of the bush or the bracken to plunder, to cut off stragglers, or to fight, and disappeared again when luck was against them.