73 
aspera minor, the Lesser Eough Spearwort. LinnsDus 
changed it to Osmunda Spicant. Withering, Newman, and 
Moore, to Blechnum Spicant. jFrancis, Hooker, and Bab- 
ington, Blechnum Boreale, (Northern Blechnum) which 
seems the preferable name, as it generally grows in a 
northern aspect. Blechnum is a Greek word used by 
Hioscorides for an unknown species of Bern. 
All Europe claims it for its own. It has been found in 
North Africa, and probably North America. In some parts 
of our neighbourhood, the lower parts of the hedge-banks 
are quite matted with the barren fronds, and it requires 
some little strength to pull up the black, tough, and wiry 
roots of this plant with its tufted and hairy root stock. 
Genus 2. 
Brake. Eteris, Bags of spores in a long straight line 
covered by the bent-back unbroken edge of the leaflets. 
This differs from the Hard Ferns, Blechna, in having the 
edge bent back to form a covering, and from the Maiden- 
worts, Adianta, (none of which grow in this district) in 
having the bent-back edges in an unbroken line. The fertile 
leaflets of this genus have a thin, white, membranous edge, 
which is the part of the leaf that bends back and forms a 
cover of the clusters of fruit. These clusters are seated on 
the extremity of the green part. “An inner cover is also 
present in ours and some other species, which many botanists 
consider a necessary character of a Pteris, and that its 
absence or presence might serve to divide the genus into 
two.” — Francis. There are many foreign Ferns that belong 
to this genus. 
Plate II, fig. 19. 
“The heath this night must be my bed, 
The bracken curtain for my head, 
My lullaby the warder’s tread, 
Far, far from love and thee, Mary ; 
