Note 153 — {41} Fifthly, Of Plants.

The “Filix mas, or male ferne,” of Gerard, edit. cit., p. 1128 (for, says he, of the “divers sorts of ferne ... there be two sorts, according to the old writers,—the male and the female; and these be properly called ferne: the others have their proper names”), is the collective designation of four species of Aspidium; of which all, according to Pursh, and certainly three, are natives of both continents,—AA. cristatum, Filix mas, Filix fæmina, and aculeatum, Willd. “Filix fæmina (female ferne, or brakes,)” of Gerard, l. c. is Pteris aquilina, L.; also common to us and Europe. The other Filices mentioned by our author are Ophioglossum vulgatum, L. (p. 42); and Adiantum pedatum, L. (p. 55).