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Updated: June 28, 2025
And so, leading our tired horses, we went cheerily down the mountain side in Indian file, hopping and slipping from ledge to mud and mud to ledge, and calling a halt every five minutes to look at some fresh curiosity: now a tree-fern, now a climbing fern; now some huge tree-trunk, whose name was only to be guessed at; now a fresh armadillo-burrow; now a parasol-ants' warren, which had to be avoided lest horse and man should sink in it knee-deep, and come out sorely bitten; now some glimpse of sea and forest far below; now we cut a water-vine, and had a long cool drink; now a great moth had to be hunted, if not caught; or a toucan or some other strange bird listened to; or an eagle watched as he soared high over the green gulf.
Still I plodded on, helping myself with a hand on Colin's back, for my legs were numb with fatigue. By-and-by the gully narrowed, and I came to a flat place with a long pool. Beyond was a little fall, and up this I climbed into a network of tiny cascades. Over one pool hung a dead tree-fern, and a bay from it ran into a hole of the rock.
They showed the most various shades of green, from the dark tint of the mature frond, to the pale pea green of those which were just uncurling themselves. There were many prostrate trees, which nature has entirely covered with choice ferns, specially the rough stem of the tree-fern. I counted seventeen varieties on one trunk, and on the whole obtained thirty-five specimens for my collection.
A large part of the way the road leads through sugar plantations, newly carved out of the koa and tree-fern wilderness that originally covered the volcanic soil. Clusters of the little houses of the Japanese laborers, perched high above the ground on slender posts, were passed here and there.
But everywhere the rocks, trees, and soil are covered and crowded with the most exquisite ferns and mosses, from the great tree-fern, whose bright fronds light up the darker foliage, to the lovely maiden-hair and graceful selaginellas which are mirrored in pools of sparkling water. Everywhere, too, the great blue morning glory opened to a heaven not bluer than itself.
Seen from the altitude of a balloon or a war-kite, the course of the beer-coloured stream, flowing lazily between its high banks sparsely wooded with oak and blue gum, and lavishly clothed with cactus, mimosa, and tree-fern, tall grasses, and thorny creepers, would have looked like a verdant ribbon meandering over the dun-and-ochre-coloured veld, where patches of bluish-green are beginning to spread.
But the scarcity of these was somewhat compensated by the rich and brilliant colouring of the foliage. The abundance and variety of the ferns also struck the youth particularly. "Ah! zey are magnificent!" exclaimed Verkimier with enthusiasm. "Look at zat tree-fern. You have not'ing like zat in England eh! I have found nearly von hoondred specimens of ferns. Zen, look at zee fruit-trees.
During the fifteen or twenty seconds it lay there every fold that touched the stone was charred, and the rest of it scorched yellow. So the stones were not cool. We caught four or five of the performers as they came out, and closely examined their feet. They were cool, and showed no trace of scorching, nor were their anklets of dried tree-fern leaf burnt.
On adjacent flats and slopes grow survivals from one of the most ancient of all plants a Cycad, that botanical paradox, combining some of the characteristics of the lie palm and of the pine with the appearance of a tree-fern, while being of distinctive order, which flourished during the age when the Iguanodon and the Polacanthus and other monstrous and ungainly reptiles roamed the land.
Amongst the tree-ferns found are megaphyton, paloeopteris, and caulopteris, all of which have these marks upon them, thus proving that at one time even tree-ferns had a habitat in England. Frond of Pecopteris. One form of tree-fern is known by the name of Psaronius, and this was peculiar in the possession of masses of aerial roots grouped round the stem.
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