FERNS. 253 



of the country, render accurate attention to the pecuHar habits of our 

 native plants daily and yearly more difficult. To-day I go forth into 

 the woods and discover some interesting plant, which I desire to see 

 unfolded in perfection ; a few weeks pass, and lo I the axe of the 

 chopper has done its work, the trees are levelled to the earth, the fire 

 has passed over the ground and the blackness of desolation has taken 

 the place of verdure and living vegetation. I must seek my plant in 

 more distant localities, and it may be it is lost to me for ever, and I 

 console my disappointment by the consideration that such things are 

 among the " must be " of colonial life, and so it is useless to grumble. 



The Greek name Cystopteris, is derived from two words, signifying 

 — a bladder, and — a fern, from the inflated indusia or hood-like coverings 

 of the seed. 



Royal Flowerini; Fern — Osmiinda regalis, (L.) 



" Fair ferns and flowers, and chiefly that tall fern 



So stately, of ( )ueen Osmimda named." — IVordswort/i. 



The name Osmunda, in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, means "Peace" or 

 •" House-peace " ; so says Moore, an English writer on Ferns. A sweet 

 feminine name, worthy of being borne by some gentle maiden in her rural 

 home, as well as bestowed upon the noblest and most attractive of the 

 Fern Family, or, as it has been styled by a modern author, the " flower- 

 (crowned prince of ferns." 



The old and long-recorded legend of the origin of the name 

 Osmunda, given to this fern, is simply that Osmund, a prince, some 

 say a waterman — possibly both (for the prince might have owned a boat, 

 in which he amused himself on the waters of Loch Tyne) — is said to 

 have secreted his wife, or a fair daughter, during an incursion of the 

 savage Danes, among the tall fronds of these ferns, whence the name 

 was given by the people in remembrance of the safe shelter afforded by 

 the tall, shadowing fronds to the fair "House-peace" or the lady 

 Osmunda. Now the story may only be a pretty fanciful romance of 

 Anglo Saxon days, but we like to indulge in a bit of poetical fiction 

 when we can, in regard to the names of our pet plants ; there is some- 

 thing in the name and its attributes — Royal Flowering Osmunda — 

 surely it sounds better than such Latinized or Greekified names as we 

 find in our Botanical Catalogues. What of such names attached to some 

 of our Sedges as Carex Shortiana, C. Hitchcockiana, C. Sartwellii, C. 

 Schweinitzii, C. Muskingumenis, C. Wormskioldiana, and a host of 

 others; but I am on dangerous ground, or I shall get into disgrace with 

 my Botanical friends, who will hardly forgive my impertinence and 

 presumption, or ingratitude to the dear professor, who named a doubt- 



