18 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



Hooker and Grevllle., Icones Filicum, t. 161. Nicholson, Dictionary of Gar- 

 dening, i., p. 204. Beddome, Ferns of Southern India, t. 68. 



B. lanuginosum — k-nu-gin-o'-sum (downy). A variety of B. virginianum. 



B. Lunaria — Lu-na'-ri-a (common Moonwort), Swartz. 



This species, the commonest of the genus, native of various and widely- 

 separated habitats — Northern Europe, the Himalayas, Tasmania, North America, 

 &c. — is perfectly hardy under our climate. It is the only species indigenous 

 in the British Islands, and, though not common, is found in various parts of 

 England, Ireland, and Scotland, for it has been collected in Westmoreland ; 

 at Settle, in Yorkshire ; on the north side of Bredon Hill, in Worcestershire ; 

 near Bury, in Suffolk ; on coal-pit banks, near Stourbridge ; near Dundonald ; 

 near Little Loch Broom, on the west coast of Ross-shire ; and in the Isle 

 of Skye. Its usual habitats are mountain meadows and pastures ; and Correvon, 

 in his very concise work " Les Fougeres rustiques," p. 164, says that it 

 grows in exposed pastures of mountainous regions, in calcareous ground, and 

 that it should be cultivated in a spongy soil that is rich in humus (decayed 

 vegetable matter), mixed with calcareous sand or broken limestone. Eaton, 

 in his beautiful work on North American Ferns, says that it is found in dry, 

 elevated pastures from within the Arctic Circle to Labrador, Newfoundland, 

 Canada, New York, and the Rocky Mountains. 



The first EngHsh botanist who mentions this Fern is Turner, who, in 

 the third part of his " Herbal," published in 1568, gives a very good woodcut 

 of the plant, and, after its description, adds, " It may be called wel m Engiishe 

 Cluster Lunarye or Cluster Moonwort." Cerarde, writing a few years 

 subsequently, mentions many places where it has been found in England, 

 and, after describing its appearance and stating its various appellations, he 

 proceeds to enumerate the extraordinary medicinal and supernatural virtues 

 with which in liis time this plant was endowed. Eaton also states that "it 

 was anciently employed in alchemy and magic," but that " its virtues were 

 never rightly manifested unless the plant was collected by moonlight, which," 

 he significantly adds, " was probably not an easy task." 



B. Lunaria is a pretty and distinct Fern, whose stem, lin. to 4in. long, 

 bears a barren frond, sessile (stalkless) or nearly so, lin. to Sin. long, about 

 lin. broad, not much broader at the base than at the middle, cut down to 



