92 PERNS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



placed tlie lines of fructification. Forked veins run 

 almost to the margin on each side of the mid-vein, 

 which are club-shaped at the extremity. When young 

 the clusters of capsules are distinct, but they afterwards 

 crowd into one linear mass. At an early stage they are 

 covered by an indusium, which soon bursts open at the 

 side nearest the mid-vein. Though growing on open 

 heaths, the plant always seems finest when found under 

 the shadow of bushes. This fern has been called 

 Blechnum spicant, Lomdria spicant, Osmunda spicant, 

 AspUnimn spicant, Acrdstichum spicant, and Osmunda 

 boredlis. 



The clumps of Blechnum are so handsome, among 

 the wild flowers and grasses .of summer, that we should 

 be sorry to miss them, though they cannot be turned to 

 any economical uses, nor will cattle eat of their crisp 

 leaves. The plant was by old writers called Rough 

 Spleeuwort. Gerarde says, " There be empiricks or 

 blind practitioners of this age, who teach that with this 

 hearbe not only the hardnesse and swelling of the spleene, 

 but aU infirmities of the liver also, may be effectually 

 and in a very short time removed, insomuch that the 

 sodden liver of a beast is restored to his former consti- 

 tution againe, that is, made like unto a raw liver, if it bee 

 boyled againe with this hearbe. But this is to be 

 reckoned among the old wives' fables, and that also 

 which Dioscorides telleth of, touching the gathering of 

 Spleenwort by night, and other most vaine things which 

 are found scattered here and there in old books, from 

 which most of the later writers do not abstaine, who 

 many times fill up then pages with lies and frivolous 



