304 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



fronds may be anything in length from an inch 

 or two to well over two feet. 



Tusser, in his quaint old "Husbandrie," gives a 

 list of " Necessarie herbes to growe in the garden 

 for Physick," and amongst them we find the 

 "Harts tong," 1 our forefathers including it amongst 

 the multitudinous simples they cultivated in their 

 herb-gardens. " Harts tongue," Lovell tells us in 

 his "Compleat Herball," published in 1665, "is of 

 a drying faculty, drunk in wine it healeth the biting 

 of serpents. The distilled water thereof healeth 

 the passions of the heart, and stayeth the falling 

 of the palate. It healeth stoppings of melancholy 

 and splenetick evills, therefore it is excellent for 

 such as are liver-grown." Though this be but the 

 statement of one author, all these old writers 

 borrowed from each other shamelessly, so that the 

 opinion of any one of them is of equal value with 

 quotations from a dozen or a score. 



The royal fern the Osmunda regalis is the 

 grandest of all our native species, thriving on 

 damp, boggy ground, and distributed more or less 

 throughout the kingdom. Incidentally we may 

 point out that when we claim any plant as British, 

 this by no means gives us a monopoly of it. In 

 the present case, for instance, the royal fern 

 flourishes not in England alone, but as freely in 



1 Others were the " Betanie, Cinqfile, Gromel, Licoras, 

 Rew, Charuiel, Poppie, Saxefrage," &c. 



