But in these islands there are two noble species,
at least, which are true swamp-ferns; the Lastraea Thelypteris, which
of old filled the fens, but is now all but extinct; and the Osmunda,
or King-fern, which, as all know, will grow wherever it is damp
enough about the roots. In Hampshire, in Devon, and Cornwall, and in
the southwest of Ireland, the King-fern too is a true swamp fern.
But in the Tropics I have seen more than once noble tree-ferns
growing in wet savannahs at the sea-level, as freely as in the
mountain-woods; ferns with such a stem as some of the coal ferns had,
some fifteen feet in height, under which, as one rode on horseback,
one saw the blazing blue sky, as through a parasol of delicate lace,
as men might have long ages since have seen it, through the plumed
fronds of the ferns now buried in the coal, had there only been a man
then created to enjoy its beauty.
Next we find plants called by geologists Calamites. There is no
doubt now that they are of the same family as our Equiseta, or horse-
tails, a race which has, over most parts of the globe, dwindled down
now from twenty or thirty feet in height, as they were in the old
coal measures, to paltry little weeds. The tallest Equisetum in
England--the beautiful E. Telmateia--is seldom five feet high.
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