CURIOUS FERNS. 



101 



frond or sterile segment with fan-shaped pinnae, while the stem terminates in 

 a doubly -compound spike of small, round, light brown capsules. Turner was 

 the first English botanist who mentioned this Fern as an English plant ; a 

 description of it, accompanied by a very good woodcut, is found in the third 

 part of his " Herbal," published in 1568, at which time the plant was credited 

 with loosening locks and fetters, arid even shoes from horses' feet, and other 

 miraculous properties. In the case of the Adder's -tongue, the solitary frond 

 is also of a peculiarly striking conformation : its stem is pale green, round, 

 and hollow, and tapers downwards. The barren lobe of the frond is stalkless, 

 egg-shaped, and nearly erect ; the fertile spike, which, from its somewhat 

 tongue-like shape, gives the plant its popular name, rises from within the 

 barren lobe, which it considerably overtops when the plant is fully mature. 

 Like Botrychium Limaria, this is usually found growing spontaneously in 

 meadows and moist pastures, although it is recorded as having been gathered 

 in an old chalk -pit in an open copse at Abbot's Barton, near Winchester. It 

 is equally found in various parts of England ; in Scotland, in Dalmeny Woods, 

 near Edinburgh ; in Orkney ; in Wales, near Wrexham ; and in various parts 

 of Ireland. Turner, in the third part of his " Herbal," mentions it as an 

 English plant, and as one endowed with wonderful medicinal properties. 



In Helminthostachys zeylanica we have an exotic plant which, although 

 its habitat is mostly restricted to the Himalayas, Cochin China, the Philip- 

 pines, Ceylon, New Caledonia, and Queensland, possesses the same peculiar 

 mode of growth as Botrychiums and Ophioglossums, producing, from a thick, 

 fleshy rhizome, one solitary frond, with palmate-pinnate, barren segments, 

 from the base of which arises a solitary fertile spike longer than the 

 barren portion. 



Other kinds, no doubt, such as Antrophyums, Vittarias, &c, are very 

 unlike ordinary Ferns ; but those mentioned above are the species most 

 frequently met with in collections, and are therefore more deserving of special 

 notice than those principally known in herbaria, however desirable the intro- 

 duction of the latter into this country may appear, and it has been thought 

 advisable to Hmit the list of these curiosities to plants known in cultivation. 



In the following list ol Curious Ferns the strong-growing kinds are 

 indicated by an asterisk (*) : of the sorts not so marked very few exceed 

 15in. or 18in. in height. 



