THE RATTLESNAKE FERN AND THE 
ADDER’S-TONGUE, 
*\ DMIRERS of ferns have always been puzzled 
‘to understand why ferns and serpents should 
be so indissolubly joined in popular opinion. 
Just as the average individual imagines every 
species of snake to possess fangs and venom 
and regards it as something like a duty to 
kill it, so does he consider ferns to be the 
natural protectors of these creatures and to be shunned 
accordingly. This suspicion of the ferns may not have 
originated as early as our antipathy to serpents, but it 
seems scarcely less deeply rooted in human nature. We 
have hardly passed the age when ferns were supposed to 
be endowed with the power to work charms, discover 
treasure and terrorize devils. It is possible that the mys- 
terious way in which they reproduce their kind without 
visible flowers and seed and the haunts they affect in the 
dank thickets and gloomy ravines have contributed to 
keep alive the superstitions concerning them; but what- 
ever the cause, several of these harmless plants are still 
known as snake-brakes while the two to be mentioned 
in this chapter have been singled out as special objects 
of aversion. 
The Rattlesnake Fern. 
Probably there is no fern in whose haunts serpents of 
any kind are less frequent, than the species which bears 
