52 
A.SPLENIUM RUTA-MURARIA. 
Others, says Gerarde, call it “ Salvia vita (Preserver of 
Life), but wherefore I know not, neither themselves, if 
they were living.” 
The best mode of raising this Fern, if desired for cul¬ 
tivation, is to collect the spores, or seeds, when ripe in 
August, and to sow them in a mixture of limey rubbish 
and leaf-mould, in a pot under a bell-glass, until the 
seedlings appear, keeping it moist, and in a shaded 
part of the greenhouse. The glass must be removed 
when the seedlings are up. If attempted to be trans¬ 
planted from a wall, it can very rarely be done success¬ 
fully, unless the two bricks between which it is growing 
can be previously removed, so that the roots may be but 
slightly injured. The best time for thus moving it is 
just when it begins to grow in April. Plant it in a soil 
composed of three parts of rubbly limey rubbish, one 
part sand, and one part leaf-mould. The pot must be 
well drained, be kept constantly slightly moist, and 
in the shade. It requires a free exposure to air, which 
is the cause of its languishing under a Wardian case. 
It is not improbable that the way in which the cone¬ 
like main root of this Fern tents or probes between the 
rocks or bricks where it grows, may have given rise to 
its old name of Tent-wort , which in that case is synony¬ 
mous with Probe-wort, Shakspere makes use of this now 
almost obsolete word in more than one passage. Thus, 
when Hamlet proposes to have “ something like the 
murder of his father ” performed before the king, he says: 
“ I’ll observe his looks. 
I’ll tent him to the quick.” 
