90 A TERN- BOOK FOR EYEUYBODY. 



cases form a narrow line on eacli side of the mid-rib of 

 the lobes of the fertile fronds. (Plate X., fig. 2.) 



This is rather a common plant on heaths, in woods, on 

 rocky hills, &c., evidently preferring the neighbourhood 

 of water. When not much exposed, some of the fronds 

 will remain green through the winter. 



The Hard Pern will grow readily on rock- work in the 

 open air, if placed under favourable conditions for moist- 

 ure, and small specimens will often succeed in a " case 

 but the open air, or in pots in a cool shady greenhouse, 

 are the most desirable conditions. 



This fern had in olden times some repute as a medicine 

 under the name of Eough Spleenwort. Gerarde, how- 

 ever, writes of it with less faith than was his wont. 

 " There be empiricks or blinde practitioners of this age, 

 who teach, that with this herbe not onely the hardnesse 

 and swelling of the spleene, but all infirmities of the 

 liuer also may be efiectually and in very short time re- 

 moued, insomuch that the sodden liuer of a beast is re- 

 stored to his former constitution againe, that is, made 

 like unto a raw liuer, if it bee boyled againe with this 

 herbe. But this is to be reckoned among the old viues' 

 fables, and that also which Dioscorides telleth of touching 

 the gathering of spleenwort in the night, and other most 

 vaine things, which are found here and there scattered in 

 old books, from which most of the later writers do not 

 abstaine, who many times fill up their pages with lies and 

 frivolous stories, and by so doing do not a little deceive 

 young students." 



The Alpine Hard Eern, which some have regarded as a 

 distinct species, under the name of BlecTinum alpinum, 

 seems to be no other than a stunted mountain variety of 

 this same fern. 



The usual variations reappear in this fern, and we have 

 consequently a list of nearly twenty Latin names, which 

 are supposed to represent as many modifications of this 

 species. 



The crested form (ramosum) has diminutive fronds, 

 which are closely and shortly divided and subdivided at 

 the apex, so as to form a kind of lunar crest. 



