100 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



involved the calling up of Old Xick himself, made 

 little difference to these simple-minded wights intent 

 upon securing unearned dividends. In these degen- 

 erate days, many another man has not scrupled to raise 

 the Devil for similar purposes, though not as in the an- 

 cient days to the poetic accompaniment of watching the 

 fern on Midsummer night. 



By the time the wiseacres got around to giving a 

 scientific name to our fern they seem to have regarded 

 it as merely the male half of a fern species, for its speci- 

 fic name is properly translated male fern. For a long 

 time the bracken was regarded as the female half of 

 the species, but that title is now considered by right to 

 belong to a species of Asplenium — an assumption which 

 the specific name of fiUx-foemina confirms. Though 

 we now know this plant as the lady fern, its specific 

 name clearly shows that it ought to be called female 

 fern, instead. Doubtless the more aristocratic title was 

 given it out of politeness is an age guiltless of the suf- 

 fragette and when women, regarded as superior be- 

 ings, had not begun to clamor for recognition as mere 

 equals. The lady fern, like the male fern was often , 

 watched for fern seed, but doubtless with no better suc- 

 cess than attended such efforts with the male fern as 

 the object of solicitude. The practice, however, was 

 sufficiently romantic to appeal to the imagination ot 

 poets and other visionary individuals and in conse- 

 quence we have several references to fern seed in 

 poetry and a bull from the Pope in prose, which latter 

 forbids any communicant of the Church to experiment 

 further with such inventions of the Evil One. 



The male fern is widely distributed over the earth 

 but not as widely as some oninions, "made in Germany" ^ 

 would have it. Dr. Christ in his "Ferkrauter der 

 Erde" issued in 1*07 insisted that our common margi- 



