BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 213 



This question may deserve especial attention, because the properties 

 of Ferns (and they appear, from the accounts given of their medical uses, 

 all to possess more or less the same qualities) are tonic, antibilious, 

 and decidedly deobstruent; and therefore a Fern, if esculent, might be 

 expected to be very serviceable as a change of diet to those labouring 

 under dyspepsia and its consequences. And as we have no Fern, or 

 other allied plants, in use as articles of food, an esculent vegetable 

 taken from a class of plants so widely different from all those at present 

 cultivated, might be expected to be not without its advantages. 



The result of the inquiry, which has now extended to six weeks, is 

 entirely in the affirmative, as far as that the young fronds, when com- 

 pletely blanched, are an agreeable esculent vegetable, parcels of them 

 having been sent as a new unnamed vegetable to parties who have, all 

 of them, in return sent written acknowledgments to that effect, stating 

 also that it was equal or superior to others named by them. 



The young fronds should be cut as soon as they first begin to 

 appear at the surface of the ground, and as low down as may be ; and 

 when quite blanched, boiled for one hour; but if tinged with green, 

 for an hour and a quarter, or an hour and a half, the leafy part in the 

 latter instance being rejected ; a quantity of salt being added to the 

 water, sufficient to give the vegetable a slightly saline flavour. 



They however retain, when at all green, a somewhat harsh herbaceous 

 flavour, not unlike that of tea, which requires some such sauces as are 

 used with Asparagus, to give them a palatable flavour. But this may 

 be expected to disappear if the plant is cultivated, or even partially 

 cultivated, in its native place of growth, as in some fronds which had 

 become completely blanched through sand having been thrown over a 

 mass of the plant, it was scarcely or not at all perceptible, although 

 they had become six or eight inches in height. The vegetable in this 

 condition was considered preferable to garden Spinach, and also to have 

 a more beneficial effect on the digestive organs. 



BOTANICAL INFOEMATION. 



British North-American Exploring Expedition. 



Under the head of ■ Scientific Exploring Expeditions of the British 

 Government/ at p. 101 of this volume, was announced the intention 



