10 
authors wrote in the Greek language, and many of their 
works are still extant. The Greeks called Fern pteris on 
account of its plumose or feathery appearance. Theocritus, 
the pastoral poet, also has this allusion. 
“ But if you too come, you shall walk here on tender fern.” — 
IdyU 5, V. 55. 
The Romans, too, were acquainted with fern. The Latin 
name is said to be derived from (filum) a thread, because 
many species are cut and divided most elegantly into thread- 
like portions. Three leading Roman poets^ are loud in 
their invectives against one particular species, because its 
underground creeping stem is troublesome. 
“ Et filicem curvis invisam pascit aratris.” — Yir. Georg. 1. 2. v. 189. 
The soil feeds the fern hateful to crooked ploughs. 
An expression, however, in Cicero, the great Roman orator, 
(p at er CB filicatcd) howls adorned with fern leaves f shows that 
the ancients, like ourselves, considered these plants to be 
highly ornamental. In our own country, the earliest writer 
of any celebrity, who speaks of the properties and species 
of Ferns, is Gerarde, the Herbalist. He lived in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth, and enjoyed the patronage and support 
of Lord Burghley. In his work there are some curious and 
striking remarks on the virtues of these plants. Parkinson, 
who lived in the unfortunate reign of Charles the First, took 
a more enlarged view of natural history, gave a fuller descrip- 
tion of plants, and did not confine himself to their medical 
uses and properties. He severely criticised the ridiculous 
stories about Ferns. Of Moon wort he says ‘‘ Some Alchy- 
mists also in former times have wonderfull extolled it to 
condensate or convert quicksilver into pure silver, but all 
these tales were but the breath of idle-headed persons, which 
divers to their cost and losse of time have found true, and 
now are vanished away with them like the air or smoke 
therein.” The greatest and most distinguished of our 
countrymen, who turned his attention to this subject and 
to plants generally, is Ray. He was the son of a blacksmith 
Virgil, Horace, and Persius. 
