THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— August 5, 1850. 
024 
most desirable plant for furnishing the rockery and 
vacancies and corners in the shrubbery, and other such¬ 
like places. A few hints may not bo out of place for 
; its culture. It is one of the finest growing of the 
British species, and one that will make a noble object 
when once established. The treatment it requires is 
merely a moderate space for its roots, in a compost of 
sandy loam three parts, with one part of leaf-mould, and 
a free supply of water during its growing season. This 
compost will suit it for either pot culture or for culti¬ 
vating it in the open air. When growing in pots, these 
had better be plunged in some loose substance during 
the winter months. It may he increased very freely 
from seeds, which will bo iu a perfect state soon after 
Midsummer. Like many other Ferns, this will look 
much nobler when planted out in the spring. If planted 
in mass upon an irregular surface, say from six to eight 
strong plants in a clump, with a few large white flints 
or pieces of rock laid in between and about them, it will 
add to the appearance. Although this Fern will stand 
a little sun, yet it flourishes much better in the shade. 
Although some medical practitioners have no faith in 
Ibis Fern as a destroyer of worms in the human in¬ 
testines, yet other authorities maintain that it is the 
most powerful medicine we possess for that purpose, 
and it was so esteemed by some of the most ancient 
physicians. 
“Dr. Peschier, of Geneva, found that sulphuric ether 
extracted the active principle of the Fern. The solution, 
left for some time at rest, yielded a mamcllatod substance, 
which, on being freed by pressure from the liquid with 
which it was impregnated, was found to be an adipocire. 
The liquid was, in consequence of its separation, thinner, 
i had a greenish-brown colour, a disagreeable taste without 
being acrid, a nauseous smell, and reddened litmus paper. 
By further analysis the whole products of the Fern are, 
adipocire, a brown resin, an aromatic volatile oil, an aromatic 
virose fixed oil, a green colouring principle, a reddish-brown 
. principle,‘extractive, muriate of potash, and acetic acid. 
: “ The root was used as an anthelmintic in the days of 
Dioscorides. It gradually became neglected, but its use 
was again revived, at different times, by Madame Nuffer, 
Ferrensehwand, and others, who frequently succeeded in 
killing and expelling the tape worm by the exhibition of 
; secret remedies, of which the Fern powder was the prin¬ 
cipal ingredient. To kill a toenia, about three drachms of 
the powder of Fern are required. Dr. Peschier found that 
j this quantity yielded three drops of oil, or twenty-four 
grains. This may be made into pills, or mixed up in the 
; form of an emulsion; and as it is necessary to be given when 
the stomach is as empty as possible, one half may be given 
at night, and the other half in the morning, on the empty 
stomach. It is immaterial whether a purgative be given 
with it or not. By this method Dr. Peschier assures us, 
that, lie had succeeded in 150 cases of toenia. Others have 
also given information; and M. Studer expelled, in one 
] case, Tricocepbalus dispar of Bremser, which resists all 
other known anthelmintics.” ( Duncan's Edinburgh Dis- 
i pensatory.) 
The above is not the only use to which this Fern is 
applied, for the Siberians are fond of the flavour which 
it imparts to ale, and its ashes contain so much potash 
| as to be especially valuable to the soap and glass- 
maker. In Norway the young fronds, before they uncurl, 
are boiled and eaten like Asparagus, and in hard 
i winters the dried fronds are there soaked in hot water 
and given as fodder to cattle. 
The superstitions of old connected witli this Fern i 
very widely prevailed, and have been rendered classical ; 
by Shakspeare and other writers. “ This Feme,” says | 
Lyte in his Herbal, published in 1578, “beareth neither 
flowers nor seede, except we slial take for seede the 1 
blacke spottes growing on the backside of the leaves, ! 
the whiche some do gather, thinking to work wonders, 
but to say the truetli, it is nothing els but trumperie 
and superstition.” Bauhin, writing in 1050, in bis His- 
toria Plantarum, says, “ These black spots fall about the 
festival of St. John (June 25), and are collected by 
certain women and sold as Fern-seeil. I will not relate 
the follies and superstitions practised with this seed." 
“‘Fern-seed,’ says Grose, ‘is looked on as having great 
magical powers, and must be gathered on Midsummer Eve. . 
A person who went to gather it reported that the spirits i 
whisked by his ears, and sometimes struck his hat and other 
parts of his body; and, at length, when lie thought he had I 
got a good quantity of it, and secured it in papers and a box, | 
when lie came home be found both empty.’ [Bovet, iu his 
I'andieraonium, 1084, gives a narrative of some ladies who 
say, ‘ We had been told divers times that if we fasted on 
Midsummer Eve, and then at 12 o'clock at night laid a cloth 
on the table with bread and cheese, and a cup of the best 
beer, setting ourselves down as if we were going to eat, and 
leaving the door of the room open, we should see the 
person whom we should afterwards marry come into the 
room and drink to us.’] Torreblanca, in his Damionologia, 
1623, p. 150, suspects those persons of witchcraft who gather 
Fern-seed on this night: ‘ Vcl si reperiuntur in nocte S. 
Joannis colligendo grana herbae Fmlicis, vulgo Ilelecho, qua 
Magi ad maleficia sua utuntur.’ 
“ A respectable countryman at Heston, in Middlesex, in¬ 
formed me in June, 1793, that, when he was a young man, 
he was often present at the ceremony of catching the Fern- 
seed at midnight on the eve of St. John Baptist. The 
attempt, he said, was often unsuccessful, for the seed was to 
fall into the plate of its own accord, and that too without 
shaking the plant. 
“ Dr. Rowe, of Launceston, informed me, Oct. 17tb, 1790, 
of some rites with Fern-seed which were still observed at 
that place. ‘Fern,’ says Gerard, ‘is one of those plants 
which have their seed on the back of the leaf, so small as 
to escape the sight. Those who perceived that Fern was 
propagated by semination, and yet could never see the seed, 
were much at a loss for a solution of the difficulty ; and, as 
wonder always endeavours to augment itself, they ascribed | 
to Fern seed many strange properties, some of which the 
rustick virgins have not yet forgotten or exploded.’ This 
circumstance relative to Fern-seed is alluded to in Beaumont 
and Fletcher’s Fair Maid of the Inn : 
K -‘ Had you Gyges’ ring ? 
Or the herb that gives Invisibility ? ’ 
“ Again, in Ben Jonson’s New Inn : 
-‘I had 
No medicine, sir, to go invisible, 
No Fern-seed in my pocket.’ * 
“ Again, in Philemon Holland's Translation of Pliny, 
book xxvii. ch. 9 : ‘ Of Feme be two kinds, and they beare 
neither floure nor seed.’ The ancients, who often paid more 
attention to received opinions than to the evidence of their 
senses, believed that Fern bore no seed. Our ancestors 
imagined that this plant produced seed which was invisible. 
Hence, from an extraordinary mode of reasoning, founded 
on the fantastic doctrine of signatures, they conckided that 
they who possessed the secret of wearing this seed about 
them would become invisible. This superstition Shak- 
speare’s good sense taught him to ridicule. It was also 
supposed to seed in the course of a single night, and is 
called, iu Browne's Britannia’s Pastorals, 1613, 
‘ The wond’rous one-night-seeding Feme.’ 
» [“ Gather Fearne-sced on Midsomer Eve, and vveare it about the 
continually. Also on Midsomer Day take the herb Milfoile roote before 
sun-rising, and before you take it out of the ground say these words 
following, &c., and gather the Fern-seed on Midsomer Eve betweene 11 
and 12 at noone and at night.” MS. temp. Elis.] 
