MALE SHIELD FERN. 16 



antipathy of the Male Fern and the Reed is so great, 

 that the one will not grow in company with the other. 

 The same author also recommends a piece of the root 

 of the Male Fern to be laid under the tongue of a 

 horse that may have fallen sick from any unknown 

 cause ; by which means the disease will be expelled, 

 and the horse restored to health. Even the homoeo- 

 pathic Pharmacopoeia recognizes the use of the infusion 

 of Male Fern roots as an agent in medicine. 



Schkuhr speaks of the ashes of this fern being used 

 in bleaching linen and in the manufacture of glass ; 

 also of an extract obtained from its roots as used for 

 tanning leather. Parkinson also mentions it as form- 

 ing an ingredient in the making of a coarse green 

 glass in France and in England, in his time. In 

 Norway it is employed as fodder for cattle, when dry 

 as litter, and when decayed as manure. It is very 

 amusing to find among old botanical writers, the curioTis 

 and often absurd uses to which they assign various 

 vegetable productions ; and while repudiating many 

 that have been formerly received, and lamenting the 

 ignorance and folly of past times, they themselves 

 were perpetuating and fully believing in even greater 

 absurdities. Thus Gerarde, who warns his readers 

 against too ready a faith in the virtues of the Male 

 Fern, asserts his own implicit belief in the marvellous 

 fable of the production of the barnacle goose from 

 the blossom of the trees, which overhang the water, 

 being converted into sea acorns or barnacles, and then 

 hatching into a white feathery goose. A species of 

 Aspidium growing in Russia and Tartary, and very 



