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POLYPODS. POLYPODIACE^. 
Pamily I. Polypodies. Polypodies:. 
Fructification on the back of the frond. No cover to 
clusters of fruit. This family is subdivided into two genera. 
1. Gymnogramme. Clusters oblong or linear. Of this 
genus none grow in the neighbourhood. 
2. Polypodies. Polypodia. Clusters round, hemispherical. 
Of this we have one species. 
“ Here finds he on an oak rheum-purging polypode 
And in some open place that to the sun doth lie, 
He fumitory gets, and eyebright for the eye, 
The yarrow, wherewithal he stops the wounded gore. 
The healing tutsan then and plantane for a sore 5 
And hard by them again he holy vervane finds, 
Which he about his head, that hath the megrim, binds.” — 
Drayton’s Polyolbion. 
Plate I, fig. 3. 
Common Pol 3 rpody. Folypodium vulgare. Our hedge 
banks and old trunks of trees are covered with this in all 
directions during the winter months. While in the icy 
regions Franklin and Parry could behold no green spot or 
leaf ; and while in the burning deserts of Africa, the parched 
and exhausted traveller can only see oceans of sand, and a 
mere tiny moss is most exhilarating and refreshing, we pass 
by unheeded this cheering production of the great Creator 
at a season when all seems dreary and desolate. The frond 
of this Fern is strap-shaped and pinnatifid, that is, deeply 
divided, but not quite to the mid-rib, for then it would be 
pinnate. Its clusters of fruit are remarkably large. The 
leafy part averages eight inches in length. The side-veins 
of the leaflets are alternate and divided into two or three 
branches ; the highest branch of the vein is fruit-bearing, 
the others end in a knob, and thus become club-shaped. 
The roots or underground stems are about the size of our 
little finger, and creep underneath the earth or on the bark or 
moss of old trunks of trees, and adhere to them with great 
tenacity. These branch here and there with many fibres 
underneath, and are covered with dense brown scales, which 
peel off at a year’s end and become quite smooth. From the 
