POLYPODIUM VULGARE. 



COMMON POLYPODY. 



NATURAL ORDER, FILICKS. (POLVPODIACE/E.) 



PoLYroDlUM VULGARE, Liiiiireus. — Frond deeply pinnatifid, smooth ; segments linear-oblong, 

 obtuse, crcnulate, the upper ones gradually smaller ; sori large, distinct ; roots clothed with 

 membranous scales ; fronds six to twelve inches, divided into alternate segments nearly to 

 the midvein ; stipe naked and smooth ; segments parallel, a little curved, about one quarter 

 inch wide; fruit in large, golden dots in a double row, at length brownish. (Wood's 

 Class-Book of Botany. See also Gray's Manual of the Botany of tin Northern United 

 States, and Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States.) 



HE meaning of the word Polypodiiim, in its botanical 

 I application, is obscure, like that of so many other names 

 of plants which were in use by the ancients, and were adopted 

 into the language of modern botany. Mr. John Smith, in his 

 " Historia Filicum," published in London in 1S75, says that 

 Polypodhim is ''{xovci polys, many, poys, foot: polypus; the 

 rhizome, when destitute of the fronds, having the appearance 

 of some kind of sea-polypus " ; and some similar explanation is 

 given by most authors. It seems to us, however, that the name 

 admits of still another explanation, which is equally as good, if 

 not better. One of the genera of Filiccs, formerly classed with 

 Polypodium, is called Scolopendriuni, from scolopendra, the centi- 

 pede, on account of the resemblance in its finely pinnate or 

 divided frond to the legs of *the insect just named. It is quite 

 probable the name Polypodhim, as applied to these ferns, had a 

 similar origin, and was suggested by the many-footed appearance 

 of the frond. 



The Polypodium vulgare was well known to the ancients, and, 

 as Sibthorp tells us, is still called by its old name by the Greeks 



