FERNS, MOSSES, AND LIVERWORTS. 87 



Brand narrates the experience of a man who in 

 1793, told him that when young he was often present 

 at the ceremony of catching the fern-seed at mid- 

 night on the eve of St. John Baptist. " The attempt," 

 he said, " was often unsuccessful, for the seed was to 

 fall into the plate of its own accord, and that too 

 without shaking the plant." Our ancestors imagined 

 that ferns produced seed which was invisible ; hence 

 they concluded that those who possessed the secret of 

 wearing this seed about them would become invisible. 

 Ben Jonson writes, 



"I had 



No medicine, sir, to go invisible, 



No fern-seed in my pocket." 



No fern is better known than the " Brake," or 

 " Bracken," l which is not only common on heaths 

 and open places, but equally so in woods, so that it 

 is difficult to say in which place it is most plentiful. 

 It is a gaunt, ungainly plant, but when growing in 

 large quantities is not without beauty. The name 

 aquilina is from the Latin aquila, an eagle, because 

 when the stem is cut across there is a dark mark 

 shown on the section, which has been supposed to 

 resemble a spread eagle. In an old English book 

 printed in 1551, this supposition is alluded to : " Pera- 

 venture they ymagyne the symylytude of a tode to be 

 there, evyn as we suppose when we cutte the fearne- 

 stalke there to be an egle." It has been said that 

 this plant is of no use whatever ; but in the North it 

 was formerly the custom to mow it green, and, burn- 



1 Pteris aquilina. 



