BLECHNUM BOREALE. 
81 
Actou Park, near Birmingham; at the bottom of the 
thicket in the vale of Dudecombe, near Painswiok; 
abundantly on Hampstead Heath; in lanes about 
Bromsgrove Lickey, Worcestershire; at Trossacks, 
Loch Katrine; in Anglesea; in various parts of Hert¬ 
fordshire, and of the northern counties. Mr. Francis 
says that it is spread throughout England and Scot¬ 
land, and in Ireland,—especially in the counties of 
Wicklow and Clare. It ascends to 700 feet above the 
sea's level in Cumberland, to 800 in Forfarshire, and 
much higher in the Cairngorum Mountains in Aber¬ 
deenshire, where it probably attains to elevations of 
1,200 or 1,800 feet. 
It is of common occurrence in Denmark, Sweden, 
Norway, North-west America, and even in the Canary 
Islands, and at the Cape of Good Hope. 
The first author who mentions this as a native of 
Great Britain is Gerarde, who says it “ groweth in most 
parts of England, but especially on a heath by London, 
called Hampstead Heath, where it groweth in great 
abundance." In his “Herbal” as well as in Parkin¬ 
son’s, there is a very good wood-cut of this Fern. The 
last-named author says, “ this is called Fox Fern in 
many places of this land.” Dodoens, and all the other 
herbalists we have named, state that it “is very good 
against the hardness, stoppings, and swellings of the 
Spleen or Melt” and it is to this opinion that tbe Spleen- 
worts, or Meltwastes, owe their generic name. 
By more modern botanists it has been wildly named 
Oeviunda spicant, Blechnum spicant, Lomaria spicant, 
a 
