nshire moors. By an official letter the Earl of Pembroke
admonished the High Sheriff of Stafford to forbear the burning of
Ferns during a visit of Charles I., as "His Majesty desired that the
country and himself may enjoy fair weather as long as he should
remain in those parts."

In northern climates a coarse kind of bread is made [186] from the
roots of the Brake Fern; whilst in the south the young shoots are
often sold in bundles as a salad. (Some writers give the name of
Lady Fern, not to the Bracken, but to the _Asplenium filix
foemina_, because of its delicate and graceful foliage.) The Bracken
has branched riblets, and is more viscid, mucilaginous, and diuretic,
than the Male Fern.

Its ashes when burnt contain much vegetable alkali which has been
used freely in making glass.

It was customary to "watch the Fern" on Midsummer eve, when the
plant put forth at dusk a blue flower, and a wonderful seed at
midnight, which was carefully collected, and known as "wish seed."
This gave the power to discover hidden treasures, whilst to drink the
sap conferred perpetual youth.

The Royal Fern (_Osmunda regalis_), grows abundantly in many
parts of Great Britain, and is the stateliest of Ferns in its favourite
watery haunts. It heeds a soil of bog earth, and is incorrectly styled
"the flowering Fern," from its handsome spikes of fructification.
One of its old English names is "Osmund, the Waterman"; and the
white centre of its root has been called the heart of Osmund. This
middle part boiled in some kind of liquor was supposed good for
persons wounded, dry-beaten, and bruised, or that have fallen from
some high place. The name "Osmund" is thought to be derived from
_os_, the mouth, or _os_, bone, and _mundare_, to cleanse, or from
_gross mond kraut_, the Greater Moonwort; but others refer it to
Saint Osmund wading a river, whilst bearing the Christ on his
shoulders. The root or rhizome has a mucilaginous slightly bitter
taste. The tender sprigs of the plant at their first coming are "good
to be put into balmes, oyles, and healing plasters." Dodonoeus says,
"the harte of the root of [187] Osmonde is good against squattes,
and bruises, heavie and grievous falles, and whatever hurte or
dislocation soever it be." "A conserve of these buds," said Dr. Short
of Sheffield, 1746, "is a specific in the rickets; and the roots
stamped in water or gin till the liquor becometh a stiff mucilage, has
cured many most deplorable pains of