44 



A TERI^" BOOK FOR EYERTBODT. 



COMMON POLYPODY. =^ 



This common fern can scarcely be confounded with any 

 other British species. The root-stock is creeping, and 

 densely covered with chaffy scales. From this proceed 

 the erect lance-shaped fronds, borne upon foot-stalks or 

 stipes, as long as the leafy portion of the frond. The 

 blade of the frond is divided, or deeply cut on each side, 

 from the margin nearly to the mid-rib, in a feathery 

 manner, into narrowly oblong lobes or segments, which 

 are sometimes a little notched at the edges. The sort, or 

 tufts of spore- cases, are large, and mostly confined to the 

 upper portion of the fronds. (Plate II., fig. 1.) 



If it flourishes in a sheltered situation, some of the 

 fronds will remain green all the year round. Old banks, 

 pollard trunks of trees, the thatched roofs of cottages, 

 and similar localities, are its favourites, but it may often 

 be found on old walls and moist rocks. During a pedes- 

 trian tour with a botanical friend through North Wales, 

 we were on one occasion greatly puzzled to determine what 

 plant it was which we saw in the distance covering the 

 entire roof of a cottage. As some time elapsed between 

 our first obtaining a sight of this roof and our arriving 

 close enough to determine the plant, our speculations 

 were manifold. "When the truth was made manifest, it 

 appeared under the form of the common Polypody. 



This fern is the " rheum-purging Polypody " men- 

 tioned by Drayton : 



"Here finds he on an oak rheum -purging polypode." 



The root was in former times employed in powder foi? 

 coating pills. In domestic medicine it had a reputation 

 as an expectorant, and the ancients attributed to it other 

 virtues. 



Turning again to Culpepper, we read that after rating 

 the physicians for giving the preference to the Polypody 

 of the oak, "the truth, is, that which grows upon the 



* Polypodinm vulgare, LINK". 



