36 HANDY BOOK 01' 
small painting by Nature's pencil the cognomen of " King 
Charles in the Oak." A mournful fancy, truly, had he who 
thus named it ; but, ever since, the name has descended 
from sire to son, through generations of schoolboys, to the 
present day. Linnaeus, in like manner, resting beside a 
rocky bank in Lapland, where the Brake-fern grew in such 
profusion as to form a canopy above his head, chancing to 
cut one of the stems a little way below the earth, found to 
his great surprise that it presented a kind of minute pencil- 
ling. Mindful of the Imperial Eagle, either as a cognizance 
of the House of Austria, or else having respect to the stern 
occupant of rugged mountains, winging his bold flight over 
regions of perpetual winter, he gave to it the name of Pterix 
aquilina. 
The Pteris is not only abundant, but extremely useful ; 
it is preferred in Scotland for thatching cottages and sheds, 
and serves in Wales for littering horses. You may see, 
even in the streets of London, cart-loads of this favourite 
fern at the doors of fruiterers and fishmongers. I often 
turn aside, when passing, to look upon its well-remem- 
bered branches ; and many a thought arises of far-oft' 
scenes, where the Brake-fern flourished amid the loveliest 
haunts, by stream or wood-side, or on sunny heaths, among 
wild thyme and the bee-orchis. 
Cottagers have recourse to the ashes of the common Brake 
for obtaining a tolerably pure alkali, mixed with water, 
and formed into balls, which are afterwards heated in the 
rire ; they arc much used to make lye for scouring linen. 
In countries where coal is scarce, the peasantry find them 
invaluable for heating ovens and burning limestone, for 
they yield a very great heat : when seen in the gloom of 
evening thus gleaming from some lone lime-kiln among 
rocks and aged trees, the effect is exceedingly pleasing. 
A coarse kind of bread is prepared from the roots in some 
inhospitable regions of the globe : in countries, too, where 
fruits abound, and palms and citrons yield abundance of 
