122 FILICES 
recently been used in our country by physicians. The astringent roots are 
employed in the preparation of leather. The young scroll-like fronds were 
formerly called Lucky Hands or St. John’s Hands, and were believed, in 
days of darkness, to protect the possessor from all the ills of magic, the evil 
eye, or witchcraft. The old German name of the fern, Johannis wurtzel, 
reminds us of the usages common not alone in continental countries, but also 
in our own land. Not only was the yellow St. John’s-wort dedicated to 
St. John the Baptist, and burnt on Midsummer Eve, in the fires raised in 
honour of the saint, but the delicate fern was duly gathered then, and sold 
to the credulous, who wore it about their persons, and mingled it in the 
water drunk by their cows. In Norway this plant is used as fodder for 
horses and cattle, and, when dried, it makes a good litter for these animals. 
The plant grows in shady places throughout Europe, and seems to have been 
used medicinally by Theophrastus and Galen. 
The underground stem of this fern forms a turfy or tufted head several 
inches in diameter, and the dark brown fibrous roots are very strong and 
tough. The stipes and rachis are sometimes smooth and yellow, or more 
usually densely clothed with pale purple scales. A handsome variety (var. 
incisa), very similar to the common form of the Male Fern, but larger, often 
attains the height of four, or even five feet. Its pinnules are longer and 
more pointed, and their edges more deeply cut, the lateral branches of veins 
more numerous, and the clusters extending over a larger part of the pinnule. 
A stunted variety, about a foot high, in which the pinnules become rounded 
lobes, and the fructification is diminished so as to form a line only on each 
side of the mid-vein of the pinne, is called L. abbrevidta. The former variety 
is not infrequent; the latter is found rarely, in woods and on banks in 
Cumberland and Yorkshire. A very singular form of this fern is sometimes 
- seen, in which the points of the pinne spread out into a kind of fringe, so 
that the top of the frond looks like a tassel. A similar change occurs also 
in the Lady Fern and in several other of our British species. A remark- 
able variety, termed lorreri, was discovered by Mr. Borrer, in Devonshire, 
and seems not uncommon. It has a narrow lanceolate frond of a golden 
yellow colour, and bright yellow scales on the rachis. 
5. Triangular Prickly-toothed, or Recurved Fern (L. fwnisecii). 
—Frond curved, triangular, twice pinnate; pinnules pinnate, or deeply 
pinnatifid ; indusium jagged at the edge. This is a beautiful and well- 
marked fern, having its frond very minutely divided. Its peculiarity con- 
sists in having the margins of its segments all curled upwards, rendering 
their upper surface concave, and not, like those of several other ferns, rolled 
beneath. It rises in circular clumps, and its fronds droop most gracefully, 
forming concave arches. They are about one or two feet in length. This 
fern grows in warm shady woods, sometimes close by the stream or water- 
fall; at others, at a little distance from it. Occasionally we find it on 
exposed rocks, but it is not so luxuriant there as in the recesses of the 
greenwood. It has, when bruised, a very pleasant odour, and is sometimes 
called Hay-scented Fern. Its triangular frond, broadest at the base, is twice 
pinnate ; the lower pair of branches being not only longer, but broader than 
the rest, and very distinctly stalked. The pinnules on the lower side of the 
