164 
European Ferns. 
Polypody, especially when growing on the oak, has long endured a high reputation, which, 
indeed, is not yet entirely extinct. Drayton speaks of it as the “rheum-purging Polypody,” 
and such herbals as Langham’s “Garden of Health” devote a good deal of space to the record 
of its “virtues.” Mr. Newman says that he has seen women collecting it in Herefordshire as 
a specific against whooping-cough. It was gathered 
late in the year, when the sori were fully developed, 
barren fronds being rejected ; having been hung up to 
dry the whole plant was slowly boiled with coarse, 
raw sugar, a mucilaginous decoction of the fronds 
being the way in which it was most frequently ad- 
PORTIONS OF FROND OF TOLYPODIUM CORNUBIENSE, 
ministered. In the Arran Islands, in Galway Bay, Mr. Hart met with a strong belief in its 
properties, which, indeed, savour somewhat of the marvellous.* An old woman thus prescribed 
its use: “It was to be pulled in the full moon, and the roots of it buried in porridge, and left 
there for the night ; but if you do place the root as it grows, it will work you downwards, 
and if you place it upside down it will work you upwards; but if you put it both ways it 
* “Journal of Botany,” 1873, p. 339. 
