102 FERNS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



" But on St. John's mysterious night, 

 Sacred to many a wizard spell, 

 The hour when first to human sight 

 Oonfest, the mystic fern-seed fell." 



The superstitious belief that he who could at that 

 hour get some of the fern-seed became invisible, is 

 frequently alluded to by our old poets. Shakspeare 

 makes one of his personages say — 



"We have the receipt of fern- seed; we walk invisible?" 



Pletcher says — 



" Had you G-yges' ring, 



Or the herb that gives you invisibility?" 



And one in Ben Jonson thus refers to it : — 



" I had no medicine, Sir, to walk invisible; 

 No fern-seed in my pocket." 



Yet the seeds of ferns are very numerous, and myriads 

 are borne on the slightest summer breeze, hke a thin 

 vapour, and sent forth to fertilize our beautiful earth. 

 Professor Lindley observes of the Hart's-tongue, which 

 is but a small fern, that a little computation wUl show 

 its means of dissemination to be prodigious. Each of 

 its clusters, he tells us, consists of 3,000 to 6,000 

 capsules. Taking 4,500 as the average number, then 

 each leaf has about 80 clusters, which makes 360,000 

 capsules per leaf; the capsules themselves contain about 

 50 spores or seeds, so that a single leaf of Hart's-tongue 

 may give birth to no fewer than 18,000,000 of young 

 plants. 



Thus numerous and beautiful, too, in themselves, 

 are the seeds of ferns, enclosed within the elastic rings 



