They are all superb
plants whose tall, sterile fronds curve gracefully outward,
forming vase-like clusters with their resplendent shields.
The regal fern belonging to this family is all that its name
implies. It has smooth pale green sterile fronds, with a crown
that encircles the fertile, flower-like fronds, forming a vase-
like cluster of singular beauty. This fern was one time used by
herbalists to prepare a salve for wounds and bruises. We thought
that it would be harder to destroy such beauty than to bear the
wounds and bruises. It has in it the very essence and spirit of
the woods, and "as you approach and raise these fronds you feel
their mysterious presence."
Here, too, you meet with the interrupted fern, whose graceful,
sterile fronds fall away in every direction, holding you captive
with its charm. It is fair enough to interrupt Satan himself.
An old English legend relates that near Loch Tyne dwelt an
Englishman, Osmund, who saved his wife and child from imminent
danger by hiding them upon an island among masses of flowered
fern, and the child in later years named the plant for her
father.
Wordsworth was familiar with these ferns, for he writes:
Often, trifling with a privilege
Alike indulged to all, we paused, one now,
And now the other, to point out, perchance
To pluck some flower or water weed, too fair,
Either to be divided from the place
On which it grew, or to be left alone
To its own beauty.
