57 
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 he 
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 Fern. He calls it the Smaller Bough Spleenwort. 
Lonchitis aspera minor. “The divided leaves” of the bar- 
ren 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 Ferns.” He also 
adds that, it is called by “ Cordus and Thalius, Struthiop- 
teris, as if you would say the Ostrich Fern for the fine 
wings of the middle leaves.” “This” he also adds, “is 
called the Foxen Fern 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 Fern” 
by different authors. The very old writers called it 
Lonchitis aspera minor. The Lesser Bough Spearwort. 
Linnaeus changed it to Osmunda Spicant. Withering, 
Newman, and Moore, to Blechnum Spicant. Francis, 
Hooker, and Babington, Blechnum Boreale, (Northern 
Blechnum,) which seems the preferable name, as it gene- 
rally grows in a northern aspect. Blechnum is a Greek word 
used by Dioscorides for an unknown species of Fern. 
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. 
