HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 



company of Danes rushed in ; but they hurt him not, for 

 they knew he could do them service. During the day and 

 night did Osmund row backwards and forwards across the 

 river, ferrying troops of those fierce men ; and when the 

 last company was put on shore,, you might have seen Os- 

 mund kneeling beside the river's bank, and returning heart- 

 felt thanks to heaven for the preservation of his wife and 

 child. Often in after years did Osmund speak of that day's 

 peril ; and his fair child, grown up to womanhood, called 

 the tall Fern by her father's name. 



OSMUNDA REGALIS, Limirtus. The Osmund Royal, or 

 Flowering Fern. (Plate XIX. fig. 2.) 



' L&*J ^i s P^ ant has a verv stately aspect, growing to the 

 average height of three or four feet, but sometimes found 

 eight or ten feet high. It has what is called a tufted habit 

 of growth, and its stem by degrees acquires height, so that 

 in very old and luxuriant plants there is a trunk formed 

 of from a foot to two feet high. From the crown of this 

 trunk (whether that is seated close to the ground, or whether 

 it is elevated) grow the fronds, which are seldom, less than 

 two feet high in very weak and starved plants ; more usually 

 from three to four feet, and forming a mass of a couple of 

 yards across; or sometimes, as upon the margins of the 



