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the fructification is mature, as it is in August or September, 
the covers become light brown and ragged. The side-veins 
of the pinnules of the barren plants fork between the mid- 
vein and the edge, and never unite, but end in a knob. 
The mid-veins are generally transparent. The root is black 
and wiry, the root stock tufted and downy. Though the 
plant resembles a two-edged comb, it would not be a useful 
comb, as the leaflets are generally curved like a hook, 
especially in the fruit-bearing fronds. The Hard Tern 
makes its appearance in May, and sheds its seed (spores) 
in September, when the fertile fronds disappear, while the 
barren ones remain through the winter. 
This plant is scarcely ever met with in a chalk soil. It 
prefers gravel, or even stiff clay, on which this is almost the 
only Tern that thrives. It is ornamental for rock-work, and 
should be so planted as to face the North, for which aspect 
it shows a decided preference. It delights more in the 
damp shades and chilling blasts of Boreas, than it does in 
the bright sunshine, which covers the rich vales of the Axe 
and its tributaries with a golden yellow, and a luxuriant 
sweet green verdure. Let not . this child of nature be 
despised because he loves to dwell in the bleaker and more 
chilling regions of our delightful neighbourhood. 
Parkinson furnishes us with an accurate description of 
this Tern. He calls it the Smaller Hough Spearwort. 
Lonchitis aspera minor. ‘‘The divided leaves” of the barren 
frond “are each separated from others, but not fully to the 
middle rib. In the middle of those outer leaves rise up 
.other bigger and thicker stalks of the narrower leaves, like 
unto them, but fully separated and so finely dented about 
the edges, that they seem curled with brownish spots or 
scales on the backs of them, as in other Terns.” He also 
adds that it is called by “ Cordus and Thalius, Struthiopteris, 
as if you would say the Ostrich Tern for the fine wings of 
the middle leaves.”" “This” he also adds, “is called the 
Toxen Tern by many persons of this land.” “The dried 
leaves taken in vinegar is held to be good to dissolve the 
hardness of the spleen, and the green leaves to be singular 
good for wounds, and to keep them from inflammation.” 
Various names have been assigned to the “Hard Tern” 
by different authors. The very old writers called it Lonchitis 
