THE USES OF FERNS. 
81 
vessels that they wish to varnish. The Chinese use this 
less than they did in former times, pretty generally 
substituting wood-ashes for fern-ashes. To this substi- 
tution they ascribe the falling off in the beauty of their 
china. 
The Maiden-hair fern was famous for many qualities, 
medicinal and sentimental, but all or most of these have 
fallen into disfavour. Mr. Newman quotes an article 
from the ‘ British Herbal/ descriptive of the qualities in 
question : “ It would be endless to enumerate all the 
virtues of this plant, of which treatises have been written ; 
perhaps the reader may think those already mentioned 
more than fall to the share of any one vegetable ; how- 
ever, as it contains a very fine nitrous salt, of all others 
the most universally useful in medicine, it may probably 
be serviceable in most cases, without any great exagge- 
ration of its virtues, and, because the native salts of 
plants are best got out of them by boiling, the form 
of a decoction seems to be the most proper to take it 
in.” In the south of France they still wash the hair 
with a decoction of this fern, and the splendid tresses of 
the French and Italian women speak eloquently in its 
favour. 
An article of commerce, called Pulu , is produced by 
various species of ferns growing in Madeira, the Canaries, 
and Azores. This is an elastic, golden, silky substance, 
and grows on the caudex and lower part of the stem of 
the Dicksonia culcita , and Cibotium glaucum , Chamissoi , 
and Menziesia. On this subject, Sir William Hooker 
further tells us that the Pulu is an important article of 
commerce in the Sandwich Islands ; the export com- 
menced in 1851, and, in 1858, 313,220 pounds were ex- 
ported. It is used for stuffing pillows and cushions. 
G 
