THE BRAKE, OR BRACKEN. 
JPteris aquilina — Linnaeus. 
Pteris is the Greek p ter os, a feather, applied of old 
to some kind of Fern, and well applied here, — Ptei'is 
aquilina , the eagle feather, being doubly applicable to 
the magnificent, however common, Bracken. Brack&n 
is Saxon ; it is the female fern of old writers before 
Linnaeus, — not to be confounded with Thelypteris , 
the Feminine Fern, nor with Filix - cemina, the Lady 
Fern. Fern itself is old Saxon also. The Bracken 
grows everywhere, except on chalk (possibly not get- 
ting depth there), ‘and is the commonest of all our 
Ferns. Over sandy wastes, on hedge banks, in warm 
moist lanes and woods, it grows abundantly, overtop- 
ping the rankest flowers, climbing among the bushes, 
half supported by them, to a height of from a couple 
of feet to sometimes eight or ten. The caudex, thick 
and blackish, is usually creeping just beneath the sur- 
face more extensively than that of any other Fern ; 
but in some cases growing straight downwards to a 
great depth, Mr. Newman stating that he has found it 
