Lastrea. 
15 * 
not appear to spread beyond the European borders, although it has been recorded from the 
Azores and North America. 
Although not one of the most interesting or remarkable of European ferns, the Moun- 
tain Fern, as L. Orcopteris is sometimes called — a translation of its (Greek) specific name — is 
well worthy of cultivation, although it is not particularly amenable to this mode of treat- 
ment. It is recommended to pot or plant it in fine loam, and to keep this soil wet through 
the winter, this being done, when the plants are in pots, by keeping a feeder full of water 
beneath them. Mr. Moore suggests that “a continuous supply from a syphon, allowing the 
superfluous quantity to overflow, so that there might be a constant change going on, would 
be a still better arrangement ; it would, at least, assimilate more exactly with the cease- 
less percolation which must be going on on its native hills.* It produces a large number of 
seedlings, which do not bear fruit until they are about three years old ; the fronds are annual, 
and soon cut off by frosts ; they are usually fertile. 
Like the last, this is not a very variable plant. There is a form ( caudata ) in which the 
pinnae are prolonged into long tail-like points, and another ( cristata ) in which they are crested 
at the apex, after the manner of some of the varieties of the Lady Fern and the Male Fern ; 
but there are no deviations of any importance from the ordinary type. 
THE MALE FERN : LASTREA FILIX-MAS, Presl. 
Next to the Bracken, the Male Fern may fairly take rank as the best known and most 
commonly met with of European ferns. It is also, assuredly, one of the handsomest ; indeed, 
there are few objects more beautiful than a well-grown specimen of this plant, the tall fronds 
rising up in a circle, slightly leaning backwards at their tips, or quite erect, and joining each 
other so closely as to form a basket-like appearance, in the centre of which the young fronds 
develope in crosier-like fashion, the rich brown hue of the scales with which they are covered 
forming an effective contrast with the bright, yet subdued green of the fully expanded fronds. 
To this basket-like form of the plant it is indebted for the name “ Basket Fern,” by which 
it is known in parts of Cornwall and Hampshire ; in the Border Country it is called “ Dead 
Man’s Hand,” in allusion to the appearance of the young fronds before they begin to uncoil, 
when they not inaptly resemble a closed fist. The graceful curve of the uncoiling fronds is 
shown in the accompanying figure. 
These fronds rise from a short unbranched rhizome about an inch thick, which, how- 
ever, appears to be of more than double that bulk, owing to the fact that it is closely 
covered by the hard, fleshy, persistent bases of the fronds of previous years ; the black, 
wiry roots spring from among these. When cut open with a knife, the rhizome is found to 
be of a fleshy texture, and of a pale, yellowish-green colour ; it is to this that the Male Fern 
owes its reputation as an anthelmintic, which, as we shall see further on, it has long possessed, 
and which has obtained for it a place in the British pharmacopoeia. 
The fronds of the Male Fern are from two to three feet, or even more, in length ; they 
rise from the extremity of the rhizome, forming a circle, and are nearly, or quite, upright. The 
stipes of each is densely covered, especially in its lower portion, with large chaffy, thin, light- 
brown scales and hairs, interspersed with smaller ones ; these extend, more or less, along the 
rachis. The pinnae are very numerous, alternate, or nearly opposite, long and narrow, often 
overlapping, though sometimes comparatively distant ; the pinnules are distinct at the base of 
* “Nature-printed British Ferns” (8vo ed.), vol. i., p. 175. 
