FLOWERING FERN. 
335 
indeed they are seldom alluded to by the older botanists : we 
are, however, favored by Gerarde with the following particulars. 
‘‘ The root, and especially the heart or middle part thereof, 
boyled or else stamped, and taken with some kinde of liquor, 
is thought to be good for those that are wounded, dry-beaten 
and bruised ; that have fallen from some high place : and for 
the same cause the Empericks do put it in decoctions, which the 
later Physitians doe call wound drinkes : some take it to be so 
effectuall and of so great a vertue that it can dissolue cluttered 
bloud remaining in any inward part of the body, and that it also 
can expell or drive it out by the wound.”^ 
The roots are strong and fibrous : the rhizoma is tufted, and 
very large, as might be anticipated from its capacity of annually 
producing such a weight of foliage : this rhizoma, in marshy 
situations, and when shaded by alders and other trees, rises full 
two feet above the surface of the ground, exhibiting an appear- 
ance somewhat like that of the tree ferns. The young fronds, 
varying in number from six to twelve, make their appearance in 
May, arrive at maturity in August, and are destroyed by the 
first frosts of winter ; their growth is remarkably rapid and vigo- 
rous, and, until nearly full grown, they have a reddish colour, 
like the shoots of many herbaceous plants. The fronds are 
fertile and barren. 
The fertile frond is linear and pinnate : the pinnae are four or 
five pairs in number, generally opposite, linear, and pinnate ; 
the pinnules are linear, generally alternate, stalked and rounded 
at the apex, with the exception of the apical pinnule, which is 
more acute. The apex of the frond is composed of a compact 
cluster of spikes ; these spikes correspond to pinnules, of which 
only the midvein and a slight marginal wing is present, and to 
each of the lateral veins is attached a nearly spherical cluster 
of capsules ; these clusters entirely supersede any leafy portion 
in pinnae so converted ; frequent instances, however, exhibit the 
apex of a pinnule in a leafy or barren, while the base is in a 
fertile state. In an early stage of the frond these spikes appear 
crowded and pressed together, as represented at page 333, but 
^ Ger. Em. 1132. 
