1 26 
European Ferns. 
in his “Welsh Botanology ” (1813), tells us that upon the Holyhead mountain in Anglesea the 
Scale Fern had “ become very scarce from being gathered for bait in rock-cod-fishing ! ” It 
must be admitted that this is an extraordinary use for a fern ; but it is more intelligible 
than might be supposed. Gerard, in describing the plant, says that the leaves, “ when they 
be withered, are folded up together like a scrole, and hairie without, much like to the rough 
beare-worme wherewith men baite their hookes to catch fish;” and it was to this, according 
to the same author, that the plant owed its old name of Scolopendria, “ of the likenes that it 
hath with the beare-worme before remembered:” so that we may readily understand that this 
resemblance may have been noticed by the Anglesea fishermen, and turned to account in the 
manner above indicated. 
The old herbals contain a good deal of quaint matter concerning the Scale Fern, to some 
of which it may be interesting to direct attention. This was the original Spleenwort, although 
that name is now applied to the species of Asplenium, and it was so named on account of the 
curious effect it was believed to have upon the spleen. This belief may be traced a long way 
back ; Vitruvius tells us that in the island of Crete, near the river Porterius, which flows 
between Gnosus and Cortyna, on the side towards Cortyna, the flocks and herds were found 
without spleens because they browsed on this herb, while on the other side, towards Gnosus 
they had spleens because it did not grow there. Bullein, in his “ Book of Simples,” says 
that “ no herbe maie be compared therewith for his singular vertue to help the sickness or 
grief of the spleen;” and William Coles, in his “Adam in Eden” (1657), notes that “it 
is said that when asses are oppressed with melancholy, they eate thereof and so ease 
themselves of the swelling of the spleen.” In the Anglo-Saxon Herbarium of Apuleius 
this fern is called Brownwort, and we there read of it : “ For disease of spleen, take roots 
of this same wort, which . . . the Engle call Brownwort : pound it to small dust ; give 
it to drink in lithe [soft] wine, therewith thou wilt observe a remarkable thing. Also it is 
said, that the wort was thus found, that is, it whilome happened that a man scraped intestines 
with the spleen upon this wort, then soon the spleen clave to this wort, and it quickly consumed 
the spleen, for which reason it is also designated as splenium by some men, which [spleen] in 
our language is called the milt. Hence it is said of the swine, which eat its roots, that they 
are found to be without spleen.”* Du Bartas, as translated by Sylvester (1611), has the 
same idea in verse ; he speaks of — 
“ The Fingerferne, which being given to swine, 
It makes their milt to melt away in fine.” 
Dr. Prior thinks that the notion was probably suggested, on the “doctrine of signatures,” 
by the lobular milt-like outline of the leaf.f Gerard, however, is rather severe in his remarks 
upon those who accept these marvellous stories ; a fact which is a little odd, considering that 
the time-honoured fable of the vegetable origin of the Barnacle Goose owes its origin to his 
pages, and that the account of this marvellous occurrence is prefaced by the sentence: “What 
our eyes have seene and our hands have handled, we will declare.” Gerard’s criticism of 
the “ empericks or blinde practitioners” runs as follows: — “There be empericks or blinde 
practitioners of this age who teach, that with this herbe not only the hardnesse and 
swelling of the spleene, but all infirmities of the liver also, may be effectuallie and in verie 
* Cockayne’s “ Saxon Leechdoms,” vol. i., p. 1 59. 
f “Popular Names of British Plants” (3rd edition), p. 156. 
