WHERE THE BELL-BIRD CHIMES.
Bt. Edith Howes.
TREE-FEBN. Freed by the bursting of -the round brown oases- massed- beneath- r tree-fern frond, a puff of spores, fine as smoke, were wafted by the wind through the shadowed spaces of the bash One fell besire a little stream. Soft spray from the tumbling waters fell daily on the tiny spore, wakening its. powers of growth. A ra-mp»rt of green boughs sheltered it from " chilling winds, an open space above let in each afternoon the 'brightness of the passing sun. .Fostered by gie moisture and warmth and light, the spore grew into a little plant A most surprising plant! No frond, no stem, no likeness to the noble tree-fern -whence the spore was waited! A little 'disc, green, heart-shaped, flat, clinging to the earth below -by tiny threads, — no more than this was here. For several months the strange small life went on, apparently unchanged. Above, no further growth appeared, though sunbeams sought the little plant day after day, and dewdropa glistened nightly on -its round flat top. Sut underneath the shield of green, unseen, unknown, was hurrying life. . There the tiny, cells, forming and growing, meeting and uniting, were building up the fine beginnings of !• baby fern. Slowly, silently, drawing all the time its food and drink from the heart-ah*ped 'disc, a soft brown frond grew into the light. I^urred "and "tightly curled, . it/ pushed its way up, unrolling as it grew, hardening and spreading, changing brown for green, till at last its fretted leaflets showed its likeness to the parent .fern. Another frond followed, and another The green disc, tiny parent of these greater children, disappeared, giving up its life to iced their growth. Strong roots formed, holding the new plant firmly to the earth. Growth followed growth, as the slow months and years went 'by. Frond succeeded' frond in feathery greenness, spreading ever- -wider" arms above its lesser kin as each uncurled itself from its brown crozier coil. The earlier ones, their life's work done, by turn« hung low in silvered lifelessness, trailing idly in the dancing stream, to drop at last and leave their broken shafts ranged up the trunk. Thiok and brown and fibred, the trunk rose high and higher yet, till after many years * man could stand beneath its glorious crown of widespread fronds. Up trunk and stems, clothing and protecting, wrapping each new tendei frond in fluffy warmth, grew thick soft down, furry, golden-brown. Scores of busy creatures xf the bush found harbourage and help within the treefern's sheltering arms. Tuis and fantails plucked its soft down for their nests, wrens hid -tfrom their enemies bsneftth it fronds, delicate-winged moths fluttered through its shade, flies' and caterpillars made their hiding, places in its -quiet nooks. Gold-green in ' sunlight, moss-green in shadow, the tree-fern hung above the little stream, its 4»eanty sentinelled by the great trees that towered" beside it. Puff after puff, the tiny spores beneath its fronds were wafted on the creeping winds, to drop and grow and fill the bush with tropi' grace.
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Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 81
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510WHERE THE BELL-BIRD CHIMES. Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 81
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