J98 
ASPIDIACE.E. 
This is a most abundant species, and one which seems to de- 
light in wooded and cultivated districts : although scattered over 
every part of the kingdom, it is ever most abundant in rich soil 
and shady situations : it lives to a great age, and the fronds of 
each succeeding year appear to increase in size. 
It is found in every country of Europe, and is widely distri- 
buted in Asia and Africa. Beck gives it as a native of North 
America, but it does not occur in either of the collections I have 
seen from the United States. 
The figures of this fern are generally tolerably accurate, but 
it requires a little nicety in the drawing to make it perfectly dis- 
tinguishable from two or three others which approach it in 
general outline. 
The name of Filix-mas or Male Fern seems to be ascribed 
to the present species by universal consent. Gerarde, Ray, and 
all our earlier authors, give it one or both of these designations. 
This species may be considered the best illustration of Bory’s 
genus Lastrcea, and possesses the most perfect example of a 
reniform involucre that is to be found among British ferns. 
Its medicinal properties were formerly highly extolled. All our 
ancient herbalists agree as to its value as a vermifuge : Tragus 
prescribes the root for this purpose,* and Gerarde, quoting 
the authority of Dioscorides, writes thus. — The root of the 
Male Feme, being taken to the weight of halfe an ounce, driveth 
forth long flat worms as Dioscorides writeth, being drunke in 
Mede or honied water, and more effectually if it be given with 
tw'o scruples or two third parts of a dram of Scamonie or of 
black Hellebore : they that will use it must first eat Garlicke. 
The root hereof is reported to be good for them that have ill 
spleenes, and being stamped with swines grease and applied it 
is a remedy against the pricking of the reed.”f Tragus has a 
very curious passage on the subject of its curing wounds in- 
flicted by reeds, and says, that so great is the antipathy of the 
Male Fern and the reed to each other, that where one grows the 
* Radix in pulverem redacta et pondere iii drachmatrum ex aqua mulsa 
latos lumbricos ex vino vero suinpta longas at teretes tineas pellit.— Tragus, 547. 
i Ger. Em, 1130. 
