117 
had little to say about any fern except the spleenwort. Even 
then Gerard put the responsibility upon an older authority, 
quoting: ‘‘‘ Dioscorides teacheth that the leaves boiled in wine 
and drunke by the space of fortie daies, doth take away in- 
oe of the pple 
1 use of plants has d much in recent 
Paar that we are apt to forget the rather caida attitude 
of these old worthies the herbalists who after all took such a 
lively interest in plants more for their ‘‘virtues”’ ne for ther 
charms. We can thus readily understand why, in the ‘Grete 
Herbal” printed in 1526, the lovely maidenhair fern is passed 
by with the highly es information that ‘Capillus 
veneris is an herhe so name 
he popular names of some ferns are not without a quain 
ee Brake or bracken is the common name for Pleridium 
> 
i=” 
wm 
pb 
3 
ap 
= 
6 
Es 
2 
¢ 
= 
, & 
eos 
3 
wo 
2: 
cal 
fas] 
- 
ia) 
3 
a 
= 
ie) 
= 
a 
tried to prove that they are more frequently found growing 
beneath the trees to we they are dedicate d; but the most 
likely explanation is that the a belief expressed 
by the herbalists that such of these ferns as were found growing 
stition. e 
herbalists to the present day. ‘Male fern” and ‘‘female fern” 
are names which refer to a medieval idea of gender, more Conti- 
nental than English, and not to any notions of sex as we 
derstand it. ni ormerly these adjectives modified numerous 
other plant 
The shi ae font ies of present-day botanists) takes 
its name from the shape of the covering of the spure-cases. The 
royal- La) adie Hie has a history woven wih my thology 
of th efer itt 
