About a thousand feet lower we find the smaller, more abundant P.densa on ledges and boulder-strewn, fissured pavements, watered until late in summer from oozing currents, derived from lingering snowbanks.

It is, or rather was, extremely abundant between the foot of the Nevada and the head of the Vernal Fall, but visitors with great industry have dug out almost every root, so that now one has to scramble in out-of-the-way places to find it.

The three species of Cheilanthes in the Valley--C.

californica, C.gracillima, and myriophylla, with beautiful two-to-four-pinnate fronds, an inch to five inches long, adorn the stupendous walls however dry and sheer.

The exceedingly delicate californica is so rare that I have found it only once.