COMMON POLYPODY. Si 



a few English names bestowed upon it, which though they may 

 originally have been book-names, have become in the course of 

 centuries well known to the public at large. This name Poly- 

 pody appears as far back as 1578 in Lyte's translation of the 

 " Niewe Herball " of Dodoens, though an e there takes the place 

 of the second/. But though this, is the best known name for 

 the plant to-day, it is not the oldest. In the "Crete Herball," 

 published in 1526, it is called Wall-fern, and Turner, in his 

 Libellus de re herbaria noims (1538) has it as Brake of the 

 Wall ; whilst Gerarde in his " Herball " (1597) calls it Everfern 

 and Moss-fern. To most of the old tribe of herbalists it was 

 the Oak-fern, a name that has lost all distinction in our own 

 time by its being indiscriminately used for several other species. 



The Common Polypody has a fleshy rootstock, densely 

 clothed with golden-brown lance-shaped scales, which creeps 

 over the leaf-mould of old hedgerows or that which has gathered 

 between the forking of the huge limbs of some oak ; or the 

 rootstock may creep vertically over the bole of the oak in moist 

 woods, its rootlets filling the crevices of the bark. It may even 

 take possession of vacant spaces in the masonry, and ultimately 

 run over the stones where the way has been prepared for it by 

 prolific mosses. (Plates 85, 87, 88, 90.) 



The frond is of oval-oblong shape, and may be anything in 

 length from three to eighteen inches, according to the conditions 

 under which it is growing. If one goes to the lanes of Devon 

 and Cornwall, specimens without number may be found on the 

 rich deposits of leaf-mould under the hedges, whose fronds 

 exceed two feet in length and are proportionately broad. The 

 stout, tough stipes is naked, and varies from a third to a half 

 of the entire length. There is a singular feature of its con- 

 nection with the rootstock it is articulated or jointed by a 

 special layer of cells, so that, like the leaves of the forest trees, 

 when its work is finished it can be thrown off, leaving a clean 

 scar. Most of the ferns owe the size and woodiness of their 



