20 
THE COMMON POL YP OB Y. 
naked, sometimes nearly as long as the leafy portion, the 
whole frond measuring from two to eighteen inches or 
more. The general outline is lance-shaped, very deeply 
pinnatifid, the lobes or segments oblong, generally 
round but sometimes bluntly pointed at the end, and 
occasionally notched along the margin. Each lobe has 
a slightly wavy mid- vein, or rib, branching alternately, 
each branch having four or five alternate branchlets, 
the lowest of which on the side next the point of the 
frond (rarely any other) produce a sorus at its club- 
shaped head. The fructification is usually confined 
to the upper part, and is generally ripe by the end of 
September. 
The Common Polypody differs essentially from all 
the other British species associated with it, in having 
its fronds articulated with the rhizome, — that is at- 
tached in such a manner that they fall off at the ap- 
proach of decay. Its texture, too, is stouter and firmer 
than that of other native species. The rhizome is per- 
rennial. It is one of the commonest ferns, found 
everywhere, on the coast line, and (in the Scottish 
Highlands) at the height of 2,100 feet, very abundant 
and handsome in the Lake District, abundant also 
throughout Europe, and the north of Africa, found also 
in Caffraria, in northern Asia from the Ural Mountains 
to Japan, and widely dispersed in North America. 
Its medicinal reputation is as old as Pliny, who says 
that the root, dried and powdered and snuffed up the 
nose, will destroy polypus. It is supposed to be the 
“rheum-purging Polypody” of Shakspere; and in some 
country places they still use a decoction of the fronds 
