18 CRYPTOGAMIA FILICES. 



most vaine things, which are found here and there scattered 

 in old books, from which "most of the later writers do not 

 abstaine, who many times fill up their pages with lies and 

 frivolous stories, and by so doing do not a little deceive 

 young students." 



8. PTERIS. 



1. P. aquilina, stalk repeatedly 3-branched ; branches bipinnate ; 

 leaflets linear-lanceolate, alternate and opposite, the lowermost 

 pinnatifid, with opposite regular segments, the upper undivided. 

 Common Brakes. 



Hab. Heaths, deans, and hedge bottoms, very common. 

 July. 11 



This is in general a vulgar unornamental species, growing, 

 not in tufts, but in extensive patches on heathy pastures. 

 It is hence a troublesome weed, and in many places is an- 

 nually cut down with the scythe. In wooded deans, how- 

 ever, it frequently attains a great size, assumes a graceful 

 port, and a darker green, so as to contribute its full share 

 to the picturesque beauty of the scene. When the main 

 stalk is cut across, the pith has " the figure of a cross, or, 

 as some have fancied, the imperial or spreading eagle, which 

 induced Linnaeus to apply to it the trivial name of aqui- 

 lina." Dried fern is occasionally used as litter for cattle ; 

 and in some parts of Scotland the people thatch their houses 

 with the stalks, fastening them down with ropes made 

 either of birch, bark, or heath. Mr NEILL informs me 

 it has been lately applied to pack apples for winter keep, 

 ing. Apples preserved in straw, in saw-dust, &c. uniform- 

 ly contract a taint or flavour from the straw, the paper, or 

 the wood ; but a layer of bracken and a layer of apples may 

 be four or five times alternated, without the least risk of 

 taint, for three months. The boxes so packed, and covered 

 with a lid, were placed on a dry bank close by a wall, and 

 covered up with straw and earth. . The apples kept plump 

 and quite untainted. In many of the western isles the peo- 

 ple gain, or did gain, a very considerable profit from the sale 

 of the ashes of Ferri to soap and glass-makers. The ver- 

 mifuge properties of the powdered root are not now va- 

 lued ; nor do the country people now look upon a bed of 

 the green plant as a sovereign cure for the rickets in chil- 

 dren, though I do believe it will be found a more effica- 

 cious remedy than the hard procrustein beds of some mo- 

 dern surgeons. 



