Can QGIS 2.4 follow symbolic links to load data on Linux?

Q. Can QGIS 2.4 [Edit: NOT 2.8, brain-freeze] follow Linux soft links?

I want to add a number of raster layers from a store of NED30m elevation data, and thought I'd do it by creating a collection of softlinks in one directory to the elevation files nested in the store.

However, when I try to add a layer from one of the links, QGIS 2.8 complains:

Raster layer: somepath/elev_ned30m_links/n46w105.adf is not a supported raster data source

However, n46w105.adf is the result of a linux ln -s command:

ln -s /Mapstore/ned30m/grid/n46w105_1/w001001.adf

QGIS will open w001001.adf just fine if approached directly, but that means digging down into each tile's directory structure, while the softlinks can be created programmatically with a script.

Q. Can QGIS 2.4 follow Linux soft links?

Thanks!