18 POLYPODIACEAE (FERN FAMILY) 
summer it continues to send up the green, three-parted fronds, 
each segment of which is in turn twice divided. The uncurled 
crosiers are gray and softly woolly, and when unrolling they 
resemble the claw of a large bird, which accounts for its name 
of Turkey-foot Brake. When ripe the fruiting fronds have a 
continuous edging of brown sporangia which at first are covered 
by the reflexed margin of the leaf, but later, as the spores mature,. 
this is pushed away. 
Bracken is one of the few ferns for which man has found practical 
uses. The uncurled crosiers are edible as “ greens’’ cooked like 
asparagus; the young rootstocks are also used for food and in brew- 
ing root béer ; the mature fronds are cut and dried to use as bedding 
for stock; and in Europe the plant is still often used in thatching 
roots. 
Means of control 
“In June and in August, as well doth appeere, 
Is best-to mowe Brakes of all times of the Yeere,”’ 
said Thomas Tusser in “Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husban- 
drie,” written in 1557. And the advice still holds good, especially 
for grasslands and for steep hillsides where tillage is not desirable. 
Bracken is-quite intolerant of lime in the soil, and in such places 
a liberal dressing of lime, applied just after cutting the fern, is a 
check to its growth and also an encouragement to that of the grass 
and clover. But plowing and manuring are the surest means of 
suppressing the weed, for it resents cultivation. Indeed, hardy as 
it is, transplanting is quite difficult except when very young. The 
deep-running rootstocks may not all be destroyed the first year, 
but two or three seasons of such good tillage as to suppress all 
leaf growth should entirely kill the weed. 
SENSITIVE FERN 
Onocléa sensibilis, L. 
Other English names: Meadow Brake, Polypod Brake. 
Native. Perennial. Propagates by spores and by rootstocks. 
Season of leaf-production: April till first autumn frost. 
Fruiting fronds: Appear in June and July, but do not release spores 
until the following spring. 
