ing root, but when it once takes
hold, it flourishes mightily and after a year or so will wave
silver-lined fronds three feet long proudly before you, a rival of
Osmunda!

A sister spleenwort is the beautiful Lady fern, whose lacelike fronds
have party-coloured stems, varying from straw through pink and reddish
to brown, giving an unusual touch of life and warmth to one of the cool
green fern tribe. In autumn the entire leaf of this fern, in dying,
oftentimes takes these same hues; it is decorative when growing and
useful to blend with cut flowers. It naturally prefers woods, but will
settle down comfortably in the angle of a house or under a fence, and
will be a standby in your wall rockery.

The ferns that seem really to prefer the open, one taking to dry and two
to moist ground, are the hay-scented fern (_Dicksonia punctilobula_),
the New York fern (_Dryopteris Noveboracencis_), and the Marsh
Shield-fern. Dicksonia has a pretty leaf of fretwork, and will grow
three feet in length, though it is usually much shorter. It is the fern
universal here with us, it makes great swales running out from wood
edges to pastures, and it rivals the bayberry in covering hillsides; it
will grow in dense beds under tall laurels or rhododendrons, border your
wild walk, or make a setting of cheerful light green to the stone wall;
while if cut for house decoration, it keeps in condition for several
days and almost rivals the Maidenhair as a combination with sweet peas
or roses.

The New York fern, when of low stature, is one of the many bits of
growing carpet of rich cool woods. If it is grown in deep shade, the
leaves become too long and spindling for beauty. When in moist ground,
quite in the open, or in reflected shade, the fresh young leaves of a
foot and under add great variety to the grass and are a perfect setting
for table decorations of small flowers. We have these ferns all through
the dell. If they are mown down in June, July sees a fresh crop, and
their spring green is held perpetual until frost.

The Marsh Shield-fern of gentian meadows is the perfect small fern for a
bit of wet ground, and is the green to be used with all wild flowers of
like places. One day last autumn I had a bouquet of grass-of-Parnassus,
ladies' tresses, and gentian massed thickly with these ferns, and the
posey lived for days on the sunny window shelf of the den (for gentians
close their eyes in shade),--a bit of the September marshland brought
ind