Near the
azalea-bordered streams the small wild rose, resembling R. blanda,
makes large thickets deliciously fragrant, especially on a dewy morning
and after showers. Not far from these azalea and rose gardens, Rubus
nutkanus covers the ground with broad, soft, velvety leaves, and
pure-white flowers as large as those of its neighbor and relative, the
rose, and much finer in texture, followed at the end of summer by soft
red berries good for everybody. This is the commonest and the most
beautiful of the whole blessed, flowery, fruity Rubus genus.
There are a great many interesting ferns in the Valley and about
it. Naturally enough the greater number are rock ferns--pellaea,
cheilanthes, polypodium, adiantum, woodsia, cryptogramma, etc., with
small tufted fronds, lining cool glens and fringing the seams of the
cliffs. The most important of the larger species are woodwardia,
aspidium, asplenium, and, above all, the common pteris. Woodwardia
radicans is a superb, broad-shouldered fern five to eight feet high,
growing in vase-shaped clumps where tile ground is nearly level and on
some of the benches of the north wall of the Valley where it is watered
by a broad trickling stream. It thatches the sloping rocks, frond
overlapping frond like roof shingles.
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