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Bracken | | Name : | Bracken | | Botanical : | Pteris aquilina | | Synonyms : | Brake Fern. Female Fern. | | Family : | Filices | | Parts Used : | Fronds. root. | | Description : | The rootstock is long and fibrous (creeping horizontally), very thick and succulent, throwing up solitary fronds at intervals, which soon cover large patches of ground. The stems are erect and treelike, velvety at the base, very brittle at first, afterwards tough and wiry, ordinarily 2 to 3 feet high, though in favourable soil and situations attaining a height of 8 to 10 feet. They bear branched fronds, twice or thrice pinnate, the pinnae more or less opposite, the pinnules long, narrow, smooth-edged, roundpointed and leathery. The sori on the back of the frond form a continuous line along the margin, being covered by an indusium attached to the slightly recurved edge of the pinnule.
The lower portion of the stem, when cut obliquely at the base, shows a pattern or figure formed of the wood bundles, which was supposed by Linnaeus to represent a spread eagle, hence he gave the species the name of Aquilina. The name of the genus, Pteris, is derived from pteron (a feather), from the feathery appearance of the fronds, in the same way that the English name Fern is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon fepern (a feather). In some parts of England it is called 'King Charles in the Oak Tree.' In Scotland, it is said to be an impression of the Devil's Foot, and yet witches were reputed to detest this fern, for the reason that it bears on its cut stem the Greek letter X, which is the initial of Christos. In Ireland, it is called the Fern of God, because if the stem is cut into three sections, on the first of these will be seen the letter G, on the second O, and on the third D.
The spores of this and other Ferns are too minute to be visible to the naked eye. Before the structure of Ferns was understood, their reproduction was thought to be due to unknown agencies - whence various superstitions arose.
'This kinde of Ferne,' writes Lyte in 1587, 'beareth neither flowers nor sede, except we shall take for sede the black spots growing on the backsides of the leaves, the whiche some do gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the truth, it is nothing els but trumperi and superstition.'The minute spores were reputed to confer invisibility on their possessor if gathered at the only time when they were said to be visible, i.e. on St. John's Eve, at the precise moment at which the saint was born. Shakespeare says, I Henry IV: 'We have the receipt of Fern seed - we walk invisible.' and Ben Jonson: 'I had no medicine, Sir, to walk invisibleNo fern seed in my pocket.'The Fern was also said to confer perpetual youth. | | Uses : | The Ancients used both the fronds and stems of the Bracken in diet-drinks and medicine for many disorders. Culpepper gives several uses for it: 'The roots being bruised and boiled in mead and honeyed water, and drunk kills both the broad and long worms in the body, and abates the swelling and hardness of the spleen. The leaves eaten, purge the belly and expel choleric and waterish humours that trouble the stomach. The roots bruised and boiled in oil or hog's grease make a very profitable ointment to heal the wounds or pricks gotten in the flesh. The powder of them used in foul ulcers causes their speedier healing.
'Fern, being burned, the smoke thereof drives away serpents, gnats, and other noisome creatures, which in fenny countries do, in the night-time, trouble and molest people lying in their beds with their faces uncovered.'Gerard says that 'the root of Ferne cast into an hogshead of wine keepeth it from souring.' 'For thigh aches' (sciatica), says another old writer, 'smoke the legs thoroughly with Fern Bracken.' |
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