United States or Turkey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All these formations must be the result of the cataclysm. Well, no matter, just so we find what we're after." "Where are we now?" she asked, peering downward anxiously. "Over what State can you tell?" "Probably Tennessee or northern Alabama. See the change in vegetation? No conifers here, but many palms and fern-trees, and new, strange growths. Fertile isn't the name for it!
"Thermopylae?" "Ah! This must be just such another place, I should think." "Thermopylae was by the sea-shore," said Alice. "Now, I should imagine," said Sam, pointing to the natural glacis formed by the decay of the great wall which they had seen fronting them as they came up, "that a few determined men with rifles, posted among those fern-trees, could make a stand against almost any force."
It shone on majestic fern-trees, on the fragile Polypodium tamariscinum, which clung tremblingly to the branches of the ohia, on the beautiful lygodium, which adorned the uncouth trunk of the breadfruit; on shining banana leaves and glossy trailing yams; on gigantic lianas, which, climbing to the tops of the largest trees, descended in vast festoons, passing from tree to tree, and interlacing the forest with a living network; and on lycopodiums of every kind, from those which wrapped the rocks in feathery green to others hardly distinguishable from ferns.
Before Stern it seemed a fathomless pit of black was opening. Under the close-woven arches of the giant fern-trees the night was impenetrable. And as yet he dared not dart the light-beam into that pit of darkness, for fear of precipitating an unthinkable tragedy if, indeed, the horror had not already been cons summated. But now Bremilu gripped his arm.
This and the Cyathea excelsa of the Mauritius, are the most majestic of all the fern-trees described by botanists. The total number of these gigantic cryptogamous plants amounts at present to 25 species, that of the palm-trees to 80. We observed that the fern-trees are in general much more rare than the palm-trees. Nature has confined them to temperate, moist, and shady places.
A number of pigs are rushing wildly about among the flax and fern-trees, not knowing which way to escape. The dogs are at them gallantly, seizing them by the ears, laying up against them flank to flank, and holding on like grim death. The din is terrific, every one is shouting encouragement to the dogs, or to himself; the pigs are squealing and crying as only pigs can.
Then, bearing branches of fruit, and a huge, fronded tuft of the giant fern-trees that abounded there, he came back down the beach to the sleeping girl, who still lay unconscious in her tiger-skin, her heavy hair spread drying on the sands, her face buried in the warm, soft hollow of her arm.
Afar, on the other side of the thicket, they heard a singular commotion, cries, shouts, and the vigorous beating of the fern-trees. "The thing has turned, master!" the Merucaan exclaimed, at Allan's side. "Now throw the fire-death! Etvur! Quickly, throw!" Stern swept the thicket with his beam. "Ah! There there!"
Ruiz and Pavon, comes from the Aspidium coriaceum, Willd. These palms with pinnated and thorny leaves formed a pleasing contrast to the fern-trees. One of the latter, the Cyathea speciosa,* grows to the height of more than thirty-five feet, a prodigious size for plants of this family. The trunk alone is from 22 to 24 feet long.
Then under the beetling crags, where the fern-trees began to feather up among the fallen boulders, the bushrangers turned like hunted wolves, and stood at bay. Then Desborough cried aloud to ride at them, and spare no man. And, as he spoke, every golden fernbough, and every coigne of vantage among the rocks, began to blaze and crackle with gun and pistol shot.
Word Of The Day