Blechnum. 
69 
BLECHNUM SPICANT, L. 
Owing to its readily recognised form and habit, this species, generally known as the Hard 
Fern, was familiar to our older botanists, who were not in those days in that danger of confusing 
it with any allied fern which exists in times like the present, when our knowledge of plant-life has 
so wonderfully extended and developed. Gerard’s brief description, however, is not very graphic, 
although the figure by which he illustrates his remarks leaves little to be desired in this respect. 
He calls it “ Lonchitis aspera, Rough Spleenewoort,” and says: “Rough Spleenewoort is partly like 
the other ferns in shewe, and bereth neither stalke nor seede, having narrow leaves a foote long, 
and somewhat longer, slashed on the edges even to the middle rib, smooth on the upperside, 
and of a swart green colour; underneath rough, as is the leaves of the Polypodie : the roote 
is blacke, and set with a number of slender strings.” He adds : “ The Rough Spleenewoort 
groweth upon barren heathes, dry sandie banks, and shadowie places in most parts of 
Englande, but especially on a heath by London called Hampsteede Heath, where it groweth 
in great abundance;” and where, we may note, it is still to be found in spite of the mania 
for fern cultivation; the ravages of collectors — whether botanists or horticulturists — being kept in 
check by the watchful care of the local magistrates, who have determined to preserve the 
natural flora of the Heath. The name Rough Spleenvvort, like that of Hard Fern, refers to 
the rigid harshness of its fronds, and is appropriate enough. Spleenwort was a name (now 
applied to the species of Asplenium) given formerly to many ferns, from a belief that they 
were efficacious in diseases of the spleen. 
Gerard’s description, it must be confessed, though accurate enough so far as it goes, does 
not go very far ; but the art of describing species was in those days in its infancy. Curiously 
enough, he does not seem to have noticed the very obvious and characteristic feature of the 
dimorphic fronds, nor are these clearly shown in the figure which he gives. Parkinson,* writing 
about fifty years later, is much more explicit on this head. “ In the middle of the outer 
leaves,” he says, “ rise up other bigger and blacker stalkes of narrower leaves, like unto them, 
but fully separated, and so finely dented about the edges that they seeme curled with 
brownish spots, or scales on the backes of them as if other femes ; the roote hath a 
thicke head, covered with scales, lying one upon another, with divers fibres at them.” He 
refers also to “ another of this sort, lesser than this, found about Colchester in Essex, and 
in other places, growing in the wet borders of fields, and by the hedge sides.” This was 
probably a variety of the Hard Fern, which, as we shall see, is a very variable plant. 
The rhizome is tufted and hairy, covered at the apex with black hair-like scales ; the roots 
are, as Gerard describes them, “a number of slender strings,” black and tough; and the fronds, 
as we have already said, are of two kinds. The deeply-pinnatifid barren ones are evergreen, 
supported on short, scaly stipites, and from six inches to a foot or rather more in length. They 
are narrow and lanceolate, of the same width (about one or two inches across) for the great 
part of their length, but tapering to the summit and also towards the base. Many of them 
rise from the same rhizome: they are at first upright, but soon assume a spreading position, 
often lying quite flat upon the ground. The segments are long and narrow, rather blunt, 
or nearly acute at the apex, curved slightly upwards, entire (in the typical form), and united 
towards the base, where they are attached to the rachis ; they are conspicuously veined, there 
being a stout mid-vein producing once or twice forked lateral ones. The fertile fronds (which 
* “ Theatrum Botanicum ” (1640), p. 1043. 
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