29 
Ehine and Mosa, by using a decoction of it, are freed from 
those tumours in their hands, feet, knees, and joints, where- 
with they are much troubled.” Are any low-spirited, and 
disturbed by night ? Parkinson declares “ That the distilled 
water of the roots and leaves, taken many days together, is 
commended against melancholy and fearful or troublesome 
sleeps and dreams.” He also adds “ That the roots beaten 
small and applied to the nose, cure the disease called Poly- 
pus.” The medical men of the present day very properly 
object to all these nostrums, and Sir James Smith remarks, 
that the medicinal properties of the Polypody “are not 
enough to make it worth enquiring whether that of the oak 
or that of any wall or cottage be more endowed with them.” 
Even old Gerarde designates them, “old wives’ fables, fit 
only for writers who fill up their pages with lies and frivo- 
lous toies.” 
The Plant had its name from two Greek words ttoXvs 
TT ou?, having the signification of many feet, because it has 
many creeping roots. Gerarde says “that the Grecians call 
it Polypodium, because the holes of the fishes Polypi appear 
in the roots.” The classical writers, Dioscorides and Pliny 
state, “that it is so designated from the suckers or feelers 
of Polypi, which resemble curls of hair.” There is certainly 
something like the feelers of Polypi in the underground 
stem and roots. 
Plate V. 
The feathery Fern, the feathery Fern, 
It groweth wild and it groweth free, 
By the rippling brook, and the wimpling burn, 
And the tall and stately forest tree — 
Where the merle and the mavis sweetly sing, 
And the blue jay makes the woods to ring, 
And the pheasant flies on whirring wing, 
Beneath a verdurous canopy. 
2. Beech Pern or Mountain Polypody. Polypodium 
Pheyopteris, This plant has only yet been found in one 
locality within the region of the Axe. Eor the discovery 
