rnniip ii textile fronds partially leaf-like, 



OKUUr U f ERTILE PORTION UNLIKE REST OF FROND 



depauperization one notices especially in dry 

 marshes near the sea. . 



To the Royal Fern the old herbalists attributed 

 many valuable qualities. One old writer, who calls 

 it the " Water Fern," says : " This hath all the vir- 

 tues mentioned in other ferns, and is much more 

 effective than they both for inward and outward 

 griefs, and is accounted good for wounds, bruises, 

 and the like." 



The title " flowering fern " sometimes misleads 

 those who are so unfamiliar with the habits of ferns 

 as to imagine that they ever flower. That it really 

 is descriptive was proved to me only a few weeks 

 ago when I received a pressed specimen of a 

 fertile frond accompanied by the request to in- 

 form the writer as to the name of the flower in- 

 closed, which seemed to him to belong to the 

 Sumach family. 



The origin of the generic name Osmunda seems 

 somewhat obscure. It is said to be derived from 

 Osmunder, the Saxon Thor. In his Herbal Gerarde 

 tells us that Osmunda regalis was formerly called 

 " Osmund, the Waterman," in allusion, perhaps, to 

 its liking for a home in the marshes. One legend 

 claims that a certain Osmund, living at Loch Tyne, 

 saved his wife and child from the inimical Danes 

 by hiding them upon an island among masses 

 of flowering ferns, and that in after years the 

 child so shielded named the stately plants after her 

 father. 



70 



