154 FILICES 
or scarcely so. The free ends of the veins are surrounded by the clusters of 
capsules, which are placed within a cup-shaped, brown, rigid involucre, the 
valves of which are convex throughout, touching only by their edges, which 
are quite entire. Some authors regard it as a variety, or at most sub-species, 
of H. tunbridgense. 
Sub-order III. OSMUNDACEA. 
17. RoyaAL FERN (Osminda). 
Osmund Royal or Flowering Fern (0. regilis). — Fronds twice 
pinnate ; pinnules oblong, nearly entire, the lower base somewhat ear- 
shaped ; clusters in terminal panicles. This stately fern, which is also some- 
times called King Fern and Regal Fern, is so different in its appearance 
from our other British species, that the botanist only would know it to be a 
fern, unless the veining of its leafy frond were examined. It is the most 
conspicuous of all our native species, and well deserves its regal name, 
which, however, it appears to have owed to other circumstances than its 
stately form. Its name, Osminda, is of Saxon origin, and, perhaps, was 
given in honour of some one who in old times bore the name of Osmund. 
Osmunder was one of the titles of Thor, the Celtic Thunderer. Some 
believe the word itself to have signified domestic peace, from os, house, and 
mund, peace ; however, the word mund was evidently sometimes an adjunct 
signifying strength and power, and formed part of many a name in the olden 
time, as in Sigismund and Edmund. -It is in all probability the origin of 
the old word used by the herbalists, who relate of several plants that they 
“mundyfye” the system, apparently meaning that they give strength. 
Gerarde, when describing the stem of this fern, which on being cut through 
shows a whitish centre, calls this portion of the plant the ‘“ Heart of Osmund 
the Waterman”; a waterman of this name having, according to tradition, 
dwelt at Loch Tyne, and on one occasion, when bravely defending some of 
his family from the cruel Danes, sheltered them among the tall branches of 
this magnificent plant, which is more like a shrubby or tree fern than any 
other of our native species. 
The Flowering Fern is distributed more or less throughout the kingdom, 
occurring on bog lands, on the wet margins of woods, or on the hedge-bank 
watered by a stream, where its rootlets can have access to the water. It is 
rarely to be found in the eastern part of England and Scotland, though 
occasionally gratifying the lover of ferns by its unexpected appearance there. 
So abundant, however, is it, and so luxuriant in its growth, in many places 
in Devonshire and Cornwall, as well as about Connaught, in Ireland, that its 
masses form a marked feature of the scenery. It grows well, too, on the 
bogs of Lancashire; and sometimes its towering fronds enliven even the 
dreary sea-coast, where they thrive well on spots only just beyond the reach 
of the wave at high tide. It generally rises to the height of four or five 
feet, but tufts of its fronds, growing on the bank of the Clyde, have been 
measured by botanists, and were found to be eleven feet high. Generally 
its tall stalk rises erect, and its fruit-panicles overtop the plants which grow 
beside them; but sometimes this handsome plant acquires a drooping habit. 
