mysterious "fern seed," but only on midsummer eve (St. John's eve).

"But on St. John's mysterious night,
Confest the mystic fern seed fell."

This enabled its possessor to walk invisible.

"We have the receipt for fern-seed,
We walk invisible."
SHAKESPEARE.


The word brake or bracken is one of the many plant names from which some of
our English surnames are derived, as Brack, Breck, Brackenridge, etc.,
and fern (meaning the bracken) is seen in Fern, Fearns, Fernham, Fernel,
Fernside, Farnsworth, etc. Also, in names of places as Ferney, Ferndale,
Fernwood, and others. Although the bracken is coarse and common, it makes a
desirable background for rockeries, or other fern masses. The young ferns
should be transplanted in early spring with as much of the long, running
rootstock as possible.

Var. _pseudocaudàta_ has longer, narrower and more distant pinnules, and is
a common southern form.

[Illustration: Var. _pseudocaudata_]



2. MAIDENHAIR. _Adiantum_