18 POLYPODIACEAE (FERN FAMILY) 



summer it continues to send up the green, three-parted fronds, 

 each segment of which is in turn twice divided. The uncurled 

 crosiers are gray and softly woolly, and when unrolling they 

 resemble the claw of a large bird, which accounts for its name 

 of Turkey-foot Brake. When ripe the fruiting fronds have a 

 continuous edging of brown sporangia which at first are covered 

 by the reflexed margin of the leaf, but later, as the spores mature, 

 this is pushed away. 



Bracken is one of the few ferns for which man has found practical 

 uses. The uncurled crosiers are edible as "greens" cooked like 

 asparagus ; the young rootstocks are also used for food and in brew- 

 ing root beer ; the mature fronds are cut and dried to use as bedding 

 for stock ; and in Europe the plant is still often used in thatching 

 roofs. 



Means of control 



" In June and in August, as well doth appeere, 

 Is best to mowe Brakes of all times of the Yeere," 



said Thomas Tusser in "Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husban- 

 drie," written in 1557. And the advice still holds good, especially 

 for grasslands and for steep hillsides where tillage is not desirable. 

 Bracken is quite intolerant of lime in the soil, and in such places 

 a liberal dressing of lime, applied just after cutting the fern, is a 

 check to its growth and also an encouragement to that of the grass 

 and clover. But plowing and manuring are the surest means of 

 suppressing the weed, for it resents cultivation. Indeed, hardy as 

 it is, transplanting is quite difficult except when very young. The 

 deep-running rootstocks may not all be destroyed the first year, 

 but two or three seasons of such good tillage as to suppress all 

 leaf growth should entirely kill the weed. 



SENSITIVE FERN 



Onoclea sensibilis, L. 



Other English names: Meadow Brake, Polypod Brake. 

 Native. Perennial. Propagates by spores and by rootstocks. 

 Season of leaf-production: April till first autumn frost. 

 Fruiting fronds : Appear in June and July, but do not release spores 

 until the following spring. 



