OSMUNDA. REGALIS. 197 
/ OSMU'NDA REGA'LIS. 
THIS very stately Fern has never been called by modern 
botanists otherwise than by the above names ; and its 
usual English names bear the same import, for it has 
been called The Royal Fern, Osmund Royal, Royal 
Moonwort, and Royal Brackens. Early writers, how- 
ever, have called it by names less dignified, for we find 
it mentioned as Flowering Fern, Osmund the Waterman, 
Water Fern, and Saint Christopher's Herb. 
Its root is tuberous, woody, scaly, sometimes extend- 
ing horizontally, but at others rising erect as much 
even as two feet out of the ground, and at all times 
furnished with numerous, strong, fibrous rootlets. The 
fronds rise from the crown of the root. The fertile 
fronds are usually two or three feet high, and few in 
number; but the barren fronds are more numerous, 
and often attain to more than six feet ; and Mr. S. 
Murray, on the banks of the Clyde, measured one tuft 
that was eleven feet and a half in height. Their stem is 
smooth, and reddish when young ; they are doubly 
leafleted, the primary divisions being opposite, and the 
secondary divisions mostly alternate. Leqfits smooth, 
bright green, nearly stalkless, somewhat heart-shaped, or 
slightly lobed at the base oblong, bluntish, entirely or 
only slightly scolloped, but we have seen them slightly 
toothed; they have one mid-vein, and numerous lateral 
veins. In the fertile fronds the upper leafits are divided 
and changed, aa it were, into dense clusters or spikes of 
