THE OSMUNDAS. 



29 



The Osmundas y like other large ferns, are commonly 

 called brakes. The name, however, more properly be- 

 longs to the bracken which can show cause forbearing 

 it. In some of the Eastern States they are also known 

 as hog-brakes, the qualifying word given, apparently to 

 indicate their superior size, just as the words dog, horse 

 and bull are applied to other plants. Occasionally they 

 are called snake-brakes, popular opinion ever associating 

 ferns and serpents. Nothing, however, can better show 

 how unfounded is the belief in connection with this 

 species than the fact that the Wilson's thrush and the 

 brown thrasher are fond of choosing a clump of it for 

 a nesting-site, often building in the centre of the green 

 vase. It is doubtless this species that is coupled with 

 the serpent in the old rhyme 



" Break the first brake you see, 

 Kill the first snake you see, 

 And you will conquer every enemy." 



In the Old World it was once believed that biting the 

 first fronds seen in spring would insure one against the 

 toothache for a year. Our earliest species appear to lack 

 such desirable properties. 



Occasionally in a clump of this species one may 

 chance upon a frond that is half-way between fertile and 

 sterile. This is the form frondosa. It is seldom twice 

 alike. The fertile portion may be at the apex, base or 

 in the middle, or scattered about the frond. It may be 

 common in a locality one season and rare the next. It is 

 apparently caused by some injury to the rootstock which 

 obliges the plant to turn the partly formed fertile fronds 

 into organs of assimilation and is of special interest to 

 the botanist for the relation it shows to exist between 

 the two sorts of fronds. 



