20 
THE COMMON POLYPODY. 
stipes (or stalk) is naked, sometimes nearly as long 
as the leafy portion, the whole frond measuring 
from two to eighteen inches or more. The general 
outline is lance-shaped, very deeply pinnatifid, the 
lobes or segments oblong, generally round but some¬ 
times bluntly pointed at the end, and occasionally 
notched along the margin. Each lobe has a slightly 
wavy mid-vein, or rib, branching alternately, each 
branch having four or five alternate branchlets, the 
lowest of which on the side next the point of the 
frond (rarely any other) produce a sorus ^tits club- 
shaped head. The fructification is usually confined 
to the upper part, and is generally ripe by the end of 
September. 
The Common Polypody differs essentially from all 
the other British species associated with it, in having 
its fronds articulated with the rhizome,— that is at¬ 
tached in such a manner that they fall off at the ap¬ 
proach of decay. Its texture, too, is stouter and firmer 
than that of other native species. The rhizome is per- 
rennial. It is one of the commonest ferns, found 
everywhere, on the coast line and (in the Scottish 
Highland) at the height of 2,100 feet, very abundant 
and handsome in the Lake District, abundant also 
throughout Europe, and the north of Africa, found also 
in Caffraria, in northern Asia from the Ural Moun¬ 
tains to Japan, and widely dispersed in Jlorth America. 
Its medical reputation is as old as Pliny, who says 
that the root, dried and powdered and snuffed up the 
nose, will destroy polypus. It is supposed to be the 
‘rheum-purging Polypody’ of Shakspeare, and in some 
