26 PERNS OE GREAT BRITAIN. 



that the use of so homely a diet is a proof of the extreme 

 poverty of the people of these islands. This naturalist 

 saw both the Brake and our common Northern Hard 

 Fern growing in the Canaries in great luxuriance, though 

 never attaining either the size or statehness of the 

 arborescent ferns of Equinoctial America. Tree ferns 

 frequently afford food to the natives of the lands in 

 vrhich they are found. Dr. Joseph Hooker, in his recent 

 "Himalayan Journal," says that ferns are more com- 

 monly used for food than is supposed. He tells us that 

 both in Sikkim and Nepal the v/atery tubers of an 

 Aspidium are eaten. So, also, the pulp of one tree fern 

 affords food, but only in times of scarcity, as does that of 

 another species in New Zealand, Cyathea medullaria. 

 Their pith is composed of a coarse sago, that is to say, of 

 cellular tissue with starch granules. The Esculent Brake 

 {Pteris esculenta), a fern very similar to our Bracken, 

 is a very troublesome plant to the agriculturist, in his 

 attempt to clear the land in New Zealand ; and Polack 

 calls it " the interminable fern-root." The rootstock is 

 much used by the natives as food, as it is also in the 

 Society Isles and in Australia, where it is the most 

 extensively diffused edible root. In the latter country 

 this plant is called Tara by the aborigines, a name 

 which in the southern hemisphere is given to several 

 roots which are eaten, and also to rice. Mr. Backhouse 

 shared, with some of the natives of Australia, the meal 

 made of the inner portion of the upper parts of a tree 

 fern. He says that it was too astringent to be agreeable 

 to his palate, and little improved by cooking, but that 

 it was something like a Swedish turnip in substance. 



