there is as little poetry in a nettle as in any herb I know, but on this day, it did all that the best poetry can do. Like a mighty exorcist, it summoned up the vision of his country,-the haunts and playground of his childhood,-the cottage of his mother; and it heartened him for his duty, and nerved his arm; for indeed he would return to her, and it, with the honest pride that nor she, nor his birthplace, should be ashamed of their soldier. One thus endued

"Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love."

And it was even so:-he returned with affections undecayed, and from the rudest to the gentlest heart in the hamlet all love him.

His pleasure is, however, not to tell of what he has done and seen; -it is rather to look backwards on the days when youth was in its prime. He loves to revisit the primrose bank, which he re-peoples with his youthful associates; and when he casts up their virtues and their fates, he weeps again,-for "the flowers o' the forest are a' wed awae."-You feel that no other metaphor but a botanical one could convey his feelings, for where otherwise was he to find words, which, while they gave utterance and relief to his sadness, mingled no alloy in the revivals wherein he would see only unfaultiness and early decay? And when he recalled his buttercup experiments, -his rambles in the fairy dean,-his intimacy with every floweret of it, and with every tree, he would, satiated with the pleasant remembrances, contrast them with his quieter pleasures in the same haunts now, and remind an old companion of when

"We twae hae run about the braes,

And pou'd the Gowans fine;

But we've wandered mony a weary foot,
Syne auld lang syne."

Thus had the cheerful-hearted man spent some two or three years. He had finished the only work his heart was set upon:-he had enclosed his sister's grave, and attempted, yet in vain, to adorn it

new enemy, one he had not seen since he had left England in his youth,in short our common stingy Nettle, and which, by forcibly reminding him of his native land, gave him also infinite delight.' "Miss E. Bell.-In further illustration Mr. Hepburn has furnished me with the following extract:"A Sydney (N. S. Wales) Flower Show.-Some of the producers evince their fealty to their native land by exhibiting specimens of her weeds, or more properly field flowers, strangers to the colony, and difficult to rear in the climate; I found myself adoring a Buttercup, idolizing a Daisy, and ardently coveting possession of a glorious Dandelion, which, classically labelled Leontodon Taraxacum, occupied one of the high places in the exhibition, and was treated as an illustrious foreigner."-Our Antipodes, or Rambles in the Australian Colonies, by Lieut.-Col. Mundy (1852), vol. i. p. 72.

246

OUR WILD FLOWERS AND OUR PASTORAL LIFE.

somewhat with those flowers which she had ever delighted in. Then an autumn more ungenial than usual aggravated his ailments, and induced a sudden weakness which told him that the fall of the leaves around was but the prelude of his own fate :

:

That trembles in the morn's pale ray,
Its hold is frail, its date is brief,

Restless, and soon to pass away *.”

For as he sat under the Beech, whereon he had, when a boy, engraved initials that were scarcely legible now, the bright sun did not warm him, nor cheer him, as it did the landscape he looked upon, and loved so well. There the stalwart husbandman stalked over the fallow field, sowing the seed of a future crop; and the grain that fell to his measured tread was Wheat †. The soldier's face brightened :- Hope filled his bosom :-he returned to his cot grateful and resigned, and he retired to his rest. On the morrow his sister-in-law discovered that the spirit of her brother had gone to the bosom of his Father and his God.

"Such is of well-spent life the time,
When busy days are past;

Man, verging gradual from his prime,
Meets sacred peace at last :

His flowery spring of pleasures o'er,

And summer's full-bloom pride no more,

He gains pacific autumn, mild and bland,

And dauntless braves the stroke of winter's palsied hand.

"For yet a while, a little while,
Involved in wintry gloom,

And lo! another spring shall smile,

A spring eternal bloom:

Then shall he shine, a glorious guest,

In the bright mansions of the blest,

Where due rewards on virtue are bestow'd,

And reap'd the golden fruits of what his autumn sow'd."

*"I am a bending, aged tree,

That long has stood the wind and rain;

But now has come a cruel blast,

And my last hold of earth is gane:

Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,

Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;

But I maun lie before the storm,

And ithers plant them in my room."-BURNS.

"But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of Wheat," &c.-St. Paul.

1. POLYPODIUM VULGARE. Polypody. Common in rocky and stony spots in deans and moors, on the shaded side of old moss-grown dikes, on picturesque ledges and detached rocks by burns and linns, and at and on the roots of old trees. In thickly wooded deans this fern may be occasionally seen climbing the mossy trunk of some decaying tree to the height of 20 feet and more; and again it may be seen, indifferent to the exposure, covering in dark green patches the face of a moss-grown rock that fronts our stormy sea. It is very elegant everywhere, and not least so in the last localities, such as we have them below the Pigeon's Cove. The green of the fronds is darkest in the first months of winter.

2. P. PHEGOPTERIS Lastrea phegopteris. "By mountain rills and waterfalls," rare. N. On shaded rocks by the burn below Langley-ford.-B. Base of Cockburn Law, Dr. Hood. In Blackburnrigg dean, confined to the north exposure, but abundant, J. Hardy. It occurs, however, only in one place, where it grows intermingled with P. dryopteris and vulgare, other fine ferns, the wood-rush, with arching briers and roses; and I would not give a snap of my finger for the botanist who would not leap for joy at the sight of such an enchanting group. The bank is very steep, and, if not a little careful, you may, perhaps, topple into the little brattling burn underneath.

3. P. DRYOPTERIS= Lastrea dryopteris. This, the most beautiful, and the most delicate of our ferns, grows in many of our rocky and heathery deans, and on shaded rocks by our burn sides; and whereever it grows it is abundant. B. In Edmond's dean; in the deans of Penmanshiel, Birchy-bank, Kitchen-cleugh, and Blackburn-rigg, almost always on their northern exposures. Banks of the Whiteadder between the Retreat and Elmford; and of the Dye above Longformacus. Lamington dean, G. Henderson.-N. Sides of the burn below Langley-ford: Yevering Bell, &c.

4. ASPIDIUM ACULEATUM, Sm. Bot. Gazette, i. 38.=Polystichum aculeatum. In deans, but of rare occurrence. I have specimens from Dunglass dean; and Mr. Hardy finds it sparingly in Red-Clues cleugh. (R. In the beautiful dean at Linthaughlee.)

5. A. LOBATUM = A. aculeatum, Moug. and Nest. Stirp. Crypt. iii. no. 206. Bot. Gazette, i. 10.—Common "under ebon shades and low-brow'd rocks" in deans, and sometimes in hedge bottoms. Small specimens sometimes stimulate Asp. lonchitis. Such I have found on the wall which bounds the road above the Pease-bridge.

6. A. ANGULARE= Polystichum angulare. See Arnott in Edin. Journ. Nat. and Geogr. Sc. ii. 243. Fries Sum. Scand. i. 252.—B. In Dunglass and the Tower deans; and very abundant in the Pease

bridge dean*. (R. I have gathered a specimen in the dean at Linthaughlee; and I have another from Ennis, Clare, Ireland.) A specimen from the Pease-bridge is divided at the top into three lesser fronds, all similar to the main frond in character. I have several specimens of Asp. filix-mas with the frond divided into two; and one specimen which is actually branched. In much-shaded situations, many of our ferns are liable to such monstrosities.

7. A. OREOPTERIS Lastrea oreopteris. In the deans and natural woods of our elevated moors and mountain burns, frequent and abundant. An elegant species.

8. A. ThelypTERIS = Lastrea thelypteris. Very rare. D. In Learmouth bog, plentifully, R. C. Embleton. Recent operations may have lessened the crop of this fern in the cited locality, but cannot, I think, have yet extirpated it.

In

9. A. FILIX-MAS Lastrea filix-mas. The Male-Fern. woods, deans, heathy banks, and at hedge bottoms with a northern aspect, common. A variety distinguished by having the pinnules more distant than in the normal state, obliquely oblong, and more decidedly incised on the margin, occurs in shaded deans; and I observe that the root produces the like fronds for many successive years. A more marked variety occurs, although rarely, in swampy ground at the base of our moorland hills. The fronds are narrow, of a thin delicate texture, with rather distant lanceolate pinnules spotted with only a few clusters of sporules.-The powdered root, or the oleo-resin of the Male-Fern, is an excellent remedy for tapeworm. See Edin. Month. Journ. of Med. Science, June 1852, p. 556 †.

10. A. DILATATUM = Lastrea dilatata=L. multiflora. In moist woods, deans, and under shelving rocks, common. When of a large size, and when the frond is loaded with its black clusters of sporules, this is truly a magnificent fern.

11. LASTREA FENISECII, Bab. Man. 411. I have learned the character of this reputed species from specimens given to me by Mr. Borrer. I suspect that it is of frequent occurrence in the district, but it has been passed over unnoted from a belief of its being a mere state of Asp. dilatatum. The specimens in my herbarium are from rocks in the dean below Marshall-Meadows; and from Dirrington

* Mr. Francis erroneously places this dean in Durham; and one object I have in correcting the error is to refer the young botanist to his prettily illustrated book entitled,—“ An Analysis of the British Ferns and their Allies." Lond. 1837, 8vo.

† Mr. Newman has figured a singular variety of Asp. filix-mas (Brit. Ferns, p. 52, 1st edit.) in which the frond "is simply pinnate, the margins of the pinnæ being waved, but not divided." The figure is derived from a specimen in the herbarium of the late Mr. Winch. It was first described in my Flora of Berwick, ii. p. 11; and I gave Mr. Winch his specimen. He seems to have omitted the habitat, viz. Ennis, Clare, Ireland, where it was gathered in abundance by the Rev. John Baird.

Law. The latter are small and neat. (I have the same from Ruberslaw, R.)

12. CYSTEA FRAGILIS= Cystopteris fragilis. Uncommon. B. It ornaments the Lady's Bridge in the grounds of Milne-Graden; and abounds on the face of the rocks at Stitchell Linn. Mr. Carr says it is also found in the caves below St. Abb's Head.

13. ASPLENIUM SEPTENTRIONALE. N. In the fissures of the columnar cliffs of Kyloe crags, where it was first noticed by the Rev. J. Baird. (R. Minto crags. Stat. Acc. Roxburghs. p. 361.)

14. A. ALTERNIFOLIUM= A. germanicum. Bell in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. i. 119. Tate in Trans. Berw. N. Club, iii. 102.Mr. Dickson found this rare species on some sunny rocks, about two miles from Kelso, on the Tweed;" but the locality has eluded all subsequent research. N. On Kyloe crags, G. R. Tate.

15. A. RUTA-MURARIA. In fissures of rocks, and on old walls and ruins. B. On the ramparts of Berwick in front of Wellington Place, Dr. P. W. Maclagan. Abundant in the crevices of rocks near the Rammell Cove, and between it and Fast-Castle, J. Hardy. On sandstone rocks by the Tweed below Ladykirk house, F. Douglas. -R. On Melrose Abbey.-N. On Kyloe and Spindlestone crags.

16. A. TRICHOMANES. In crevices of rocks in deans, on basaltic crags, and on ruins, frequent.

17. A. MARINUM. Of frequent occurrence on the coast of Berwickshire, commencing on the cliffs above the Sandy-beds and the Pigeon's Cove, and recurring at intervals even unto the Coveshore. It is of small size when the cliffs are abrupt and exposed to the sea blasts, but in the shelter of the Coves it grows luxuriantly, and the fronds attain a length of 12 or 18 inches. Mr. Hardy sent me the finest specimens I have ever seen from the Rammel Cove. The fern also grows on sandstone rocks by the Tweed below Ladykirk house, a station which is about seven miles distant from the sea.

18. A. ADIANTUM-NIGRUM. In the fissures of rocks in deans, on stony wooded braes, on our sea-banks, and sometimes on ruins. Perhaps the stations where it grows most abundantly are the wooded crags above Belford, and in the dean above Akeld.

19. A. FILIX-FŒMINA = Aspidium filix-fœmina= Athyrium filixfœmina. The Lady-Fern. On grassy banks in deans with a northern exposure, and in shaded woods, frequent.

20. SCOLOPENDRIUM VULGARE = Asplenium scolopendrium, Lightf. Fl. Scot. 660.-Hart's-Tongue.-B. In the Pigeon's Cove near the Needle-eye, Thompson; in a cove between Fast-Castle and Redheugh; on rocks by the Pease Bridge, and on the wall of the road above the bridge; and in Dunglass-dean. I find it sparingly in several other localities, all, I think, on the east of our district. The fern has a great tendency to become monstrous. See Trevelyan in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. i. p. 56. The summit of the frond is often dilated and divided into two or three segments; sometimes it is deeply divided into two of equal size; and sometimes two distinct